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Online bingo - the fast food of online entertainment
by
Morgan Collins
Okay, so by now you should have all heard about this 'fast food'
style phenomenon called online bingo. Interested? Want to know what it tastes like? Slightly afraid you might become addicted
to the flavor and so you are staying well clear?
Well, let me give you a bit more food for thought. It may help
you decide that online bingo is a tempting dish, and if you do not play immediately you will enter a kind of spasmodic
epilepsy, cured only by the sound of a voice in the distant bingo halls calling 'BINGO'. Or it may confirm your initial view
that online bingo is for those with an appetite for loneliness, a craving for bankruptcy and a hunger for the monotonous.
Fortunately online bingo is none of these things.
For many people, bingo is a chance to meet new friends, to have a bit of fun and to spend money on something, in their spare
time, which they feel they get a return from, whether emotionally for financially.
Of course, a return financially is highly unlikely because the odds are stacked against you, right? Or are they? Current bingo
software is coded to deliver a return to the bingo operator of a
specific percentage. Current research shows that percentage to be around 30-35%. That means for every £1 you spend, the bingo
site will keep around 35 pence for operating costs and profits. The rest will go into the jackpot as prize money for each game
with a percentage towards a progressive jackpot. And of course, it does not benefit a bingo site to keep most of the money for
themselves, otherwise their players will soon realize that no-one is winning, their prizes will become small, the dish has
gone cold, and the hunger for a different bingo site grows rapidly.
So to ensure that you are playing on a reputable site and one which delivers the right ingredients for a rewarding and
tasteful experience, look on the homepage for a logo which refers to a Gaming Commission or Game Auditors, such as
Thawte, or that the site is closely associated with GamCare. Also try
and play on a site licensed within the European Union, for example Gibraltar, which is highly regulated. You can also tell
if a site is paying out regularly by the numbers of people online against the level of the jackpots for each game. On first
glance, a reasonable jackpot, with a good number of players, equates to a popular and successful site with good payout rates.
A good place to start is on a site which is part of a network of
bingo sites, such as Chit Chat Bingo which is part of the highly reputable
St Minver network and supported by Parlay software, with lengthy experience in the online bingo industry and audited on a
regular basis.
The odds of winning a bingo game depend on how many players are playing at a given time. But for everyone playing you can be
sure of one thing - somebody will win and that someone could be you. There are sites that may use unscrupulous marketing ploys
to tempt you to part with your money. Promotions you should be wary of are the ones like 'win £100,000 jackpot in under 40
balls'. The odds of winning this kind of amount in under 40 balls, equate to about 20 million to one. You have more chance
of winning the national lottery. Your best option is to keep it simple and keep it realistic. Don't follow these types of
outrageous promotions. No company is going to give away that kind of money in a hurry.
But we all know that the odds are stacked against us, right? Yet
both the offline and online bingo markets are growing at an enormous pace. A recent survey showed that of the 3 million plus
land-based bingo players in the UK, around 50,000 of these now
play online bingo. Around 2000 land based people play bingo online every night, bringing approximate monthly tickets sales
to over £10 million . So is playing online bingo another true form of gambling addiction, or is it just another way of feeding
our fast-food like lifestyles, with the need for instant satisfaction and immediate
fulfillment before we move onto the next fad?
Psychologists suggest that the internet in itself is known to be
addictive and presents particular problems for those who may suffer from a gambling addiction. However, recent research by Ms
Winstone (a Southampton University psychologist) shows that it can improve reactive mental abilities in all ages.
In some ways playing bingo is no different to playing the national lottery or having a flutter at the races. Granny used
to play bingo and to call granny a gambler seems ludicrous. But the national lottery or the bookies are simple forms of
gambling, and is bingo really any different.
Always the odds are stacked against you but yet people still place bets or huddle around the lottery TV shows, fingers
crossed in one hand and lottery tickets in the other.
And the demographic is changing too - with 90% of online bingo players now below the age of 50. So whereas before, the bingo
organisations would target granny's hard earned pension, operators are now targeting a much younger and broader internet
savvy audience, looking for a new way of feeding us instant 'fast-food' like entertainment in an ever evolving internet
dependant world.
So while the average household is spending £20 per week on fast-food (National Statistics survey) the fundamental reasons
why people like to play online bingo are the same reasons why you and I may enter a Chinese Takeaway on a Friday night - the
need for a speedy response to a craving, a desire for instant satisfaction, and a longing for a taste that leaves you wanting
more.
So before you lick your lips and tantalize your taste buds with the delights of online bingo, remember that it is to many a form
of gambling and to others a form of entertainment. Make of it what you will but enjoy the taste while it lasts... you will
certainly be back for more!
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