Bingo has been a widely enjoyed game since the 1960s (although it had been known well before this, it had been during the 1960s in the UK that it actually discovered its true fanbase) and since that time not a great deal has changed. The game is still played in precisely the same manner, and this is the reason many folks love it very much. It is very simple; you just need a bingo card which is going to have numbers printed on it, and to play you need to pay your entry fee (you’ll get your card when you enter). When the game begins, a bingo caller will pull balls from a bag, box, or some other contraption, and every ball will have a number written on it. When the number on the ball is the same as a number on the card, you mark it off (using a’ dabber’), and when you’ve marked off the entire card, you’ve won assuming you’re the first – view here.
This is basically bingo.
The online version, which is truly the largest shakeup bingo has observed since it started, is really similar. The one difference is that it’s all automated, which means you do not have to physically check or mark off the number on the card; the bingo website will automatically do it.
Why Play Bingo?
People like to play bingo since it is so easy to learn as well as get involved in, and it is fun to play. It can even be used to have fun on special occasions, and if you play online you can interact with other players and enjoy yourself that way.
So precisely why should anything change? If players really like it very much and it is so simple to do (and if the prizes are very great which they usually are) then why change anything at all?
Woke Bingo Arrives
Well, whatever you might think about bingo and the rights and wrongs of changing the game, so many people love, the truth is that it has changed. Some will love this, and some will hate it; it won’t stop it from happening. There’s now a thing called ‘woke bingo’ and it seems to be something that many of the younger demographic (and, we believe, several of the older generations also – we can’t generalise!) choose to play. Although the significant difference is the bingo calls that are made, woke bingo is played in the same way as traditional bingo.
In standard bingo, the caller’s job isn’t just to pull the balls out of the bag or box or whatever. They also call out some kind of phrase to go along with the number. Firstly, it’s so that the numbers don’t get mixed up, and secondly, it’s tradition – bingo isn’t bingo without the calls. Still several of the calls could be regarded as a little unkind, perhaps even un-PC or culturally incorrect. The one which springs most easily to mind is actually the call for eighty-eight which is actually ‘two fat ladies’.
In woke bingo, the calls which may result in some offence were replaced with calls that are actually a bit kinder, even if they’re not descriptive. So eighty-eight is currently Wills and Kate which, despite the point that it rhymes, truly has absolutely nothing to do with what the number is like at all…