by Kasandra Kessell

Created on: January 10, 2009

The game of bingo consists of a machine with balls numbered 1 thru 75, and a caller that yells each number to the players in the order that they come out, usually about 26 seconds apart. The first person to have the correct pattern of numbers on their card yells "bingo", and wins the prize for that game. I started playing bingo about twenty years ago. When I first began playing this game, there were what they called "hard cards". These were small, cardboard cards about the size of a potholder with twenty five numbers and a free space. You had to have bingo "chips" to place on each number as it was called. These came in all sorts of different colors, and if you were lucky, you had the kind with a magnetic casing so that you could just swipe them up with your "magic wand". If not, you had to pick them all up manually or try to dump them back into your bucket, hoping not to lose any.

Hard cards soon became a thing of the past when paper cards were introduced. There were now nine cards on a single page, and you no longer needed those dreadful little chips. You bought "packets" now, with each packet consisting of several pages. This may have raised the price of playing a little, but it also made it much more convenient for the player. All you needed now was a "dauber", much like an extremely fat marker with permanent ink, and a sponge that released it's ink onto the paper numbers. This method of marking numbers has remained the most popular ever since.

Since paper cards have come into play, an even better way has made it's way to the bingo community. Computers. That's right, computers. You can now sit back, relax and just push a button. A select few bingo halls even have the kind that is linked to the caller's table, and all you do is watch your machine, that's it. If it says "bingo" you yell it. Amazing!

All bingo halls have paper cards now, but not all of them offer computers, however if they do you are always welcome to play both.

Most, if not all of these places have pop open cards called "instants". They generally cost fifty cents or a dollar each. These are tickets in which you can win money instantly. There are many different kinds, all having their own payout system. In most cases, the payout for each individual game is listed on the back of each ticket.

Instants have been around for years, but bingo halls have slowly evolved from offering one or two different kinds to giving the player as many as fifty choices all at one time. The most popular at any hall however, is the "flashboard" instant where you can win as much as ten thousand dollars in some places.

Bingo halls used to be filled with mostly women over the age of fifty on average. Well, it's not just for grandma anymore. Nearly half of all bingo halls now consist of men, and people under the age of thirty.

If you do decide to play the game, there is an old saying that still lingers in the halls today, and that is " Don't gamble unless you can afford to lose".

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