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The Philistine's Bingo

Bingo does bring up some rather unpleasant images doesn't it? Dank, echoing halls, filled with a myriad of blue-rinsed elderly dames who will do all in their arthritic power to make sure they win the £22 food voucher and the bottle of Supermarket bubbly being offered as a prize.

Then there is the oddly sinister man reading out the numbers in a low monotonous voice over a PA system drenched in far too much bass. He talks in a bizarre and unsettling tongue and uses unconnected and slightly scary language: 'one little duck', 'two fat ladies', 'Lucky for some' and 'Jacks Alive'. What does he want? What is he for?

Even more ominous are the Mecca Bingo's of this world; huge chambers filled with row upon row of robotically similar people; all sitting at the same desks, all dressed in the same clothes; all facing the same way and listening to the announcer reel off his irrelevance. They are like the Walmarts of the gambling world, one day you have a nice bit of green grass with the odd duck and occasionally a bench dedicated to some old boy whose friends thought having a bench dedicated to him would be the highest of tributes, the next you have a uniformly bland building into which lines of people stream to throw their money away.

But it can't be all gloom can it? Surely there must be a reason why all these people are so enamoured of the game, surely there must be some fun in it for them? Could it be because it is only a soft form of gambling, it is not as 'glamorous' as poker or blackjack? Certainly there is less to risk. Or is it something else? It may be successful simply because it is so easy and there isn't a great deal of thought involved.

You get your card, you wait for the numbers and after that its all just luck really. Simple pure gambling; it is all down to chance and there isn't a great deal of money lost if you don't win. Bingo as offered by Mecca and other companies seems a pretty sure bet for the future, as the halls of the past become anachronisms and internet bingo becomes the fast, convenient, and safe way to play.