Bingo actually originated long back in the mid 16th century, when the French with their passion for “Le Lotto”, adopted their version of the game, which strongly co-relates to today’s version of bingo.

Traditional Bingo has been a popular pastime for many years worldwide. It has become a meeting place for friends, family and new people in a much-relaxed atmosphere. Surprisingly, there are over 60 million bingo players across the globe, majority of them being women of North America.

Online Bingo – bingo on Internet – has been an evolution in the bingo generation. Online Bingo was a relatively minor industry as recently as the year 2000. However, there has been an explosion of popularity in the past six years. The world’s growing familiarity with Internet is one factor for the game’s online proliferation.

You may ask yourself, how can playing bingo online give the same level of satisfaction as playing bingo with family and friends in a traditional bingo hall? In a recent survey done by a popular online bingo portal, the number one reason for playing bingo online, was meeting new people.

Online Bingo’s increasing popularity..

Traditional bingo halls, brimming with smoke and crowd, make managing multiple bingo cards difficult at times. Some players struggle to get to the bingo halls or they simply do not have the time. Besides, there are several other factors leading more people every year to stay away from bingo halls and play the game from the comfort of their own homes: -

1. Socializing: Online bingo is a multi player, one game involving players from all over the world. You can socialize with your friends and befriend hundreds of new ones at the press of a button. Featuring hours of chatting and hours of fun, Online Bingo has gained tremendous popularity among males, females, young and old.

2. Convenience: It might be hard to get to the bingo parlor these days, due to job, family, weather or health considerations. Online bingo is convenient for those players who don’t have the night in the week for live bingo games. The people you meet playing Bingo online are the type you’ll meet in a live bingo parlor. They tend to be friendly and talkative and share a love of the laid-back bingo camaraderie. If the weather conditions are bad, you can enjoy the game on your computer in the convenience of your own home.

3. Technological Advancement: Online Bingo sites have colorful flashy graphics and entertaining sound effects to enhance your overall gaming experience. The new generation of online bingo site allows you to play bingo instantly without downloading anything. Just sit in front of the computer, visit your favorite online bingo portal, one mouse click and you are ready to play and travel to the amazing world of online bingo.

Due to improved technology, you can play as many cards as you want, thereby increasing your odds of winning with more cards. You never have to worry about completing your cards as your bingo cards are filled in automatically. Your account is automatically credited if you have the lucky card.

4. Always On: The best part – online Bingo is always open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Just go and sit in front of the computer, visit you favorite online bingo portal, one mouse click and you are ready to play and travel to the amazing world of online bingo.

5. Bingo Chat: Yet another interesting feature – Bingo game panel enabling chat windows, allow players to chat among themselves. Each site has Multi-Chat feature accompanied by a Chat Host, also known as CM. Chat Host is responsible for recreating / supporting the online bingo hall atmosphere, and introduce special games amongst the players of that particular hall. Multi chat also allows you to meet new friends, share the excitement with real-time interaction. Though rare, chat rooms are monitored by employees of the online bingo sites. This ensures that bingo players adhere to the gaming ethics.

Current Online Bingo Experience..

Initially, online Bingo experience was no match to the conventional bingo hall. People preferred the sights and sounds of real world bingo hall, watching a bingo number popping up on the screen. Today, the online experience has dramatically changed. Online bingo games industry has really done a fantastic job on giving the online players a perfect bingo hall atmosphere.

Most sites have a voice actor to imitate the bingo callers found in live action settings. What makes contemporary online bingo so entertaining is the multi-level interaction with your fellow players and enjoying full control over your gaming preferences.

Online Bingo is a highly competitive business as hundreds of websites are competing for customers, and willing to give compensations, perks and cash prizes on a daily basis. While most bingo game sites may require you to pay game or membership fees through your credit card, some bingo sites offer free online bingo gaming. You may experience this kind of exhilarating game online without having to pay for anything.

Free online Bingo games don’t require any monetary deposits, and therefore no stake-money involved. The site is divided into a number of halls, assigning some peculiar character – zodiac signs or types of flowers etc. On registering yourself at the site, you can enter any one of these halls and start playing.

Playing free online bingo games is a good pass-time. If you are a Bingo enthusiast and do not have the time or opportunity to go to the nearest Bingo hall, then BingoBilly.com is the perfect place to play free bingo online.

Besides giving you the chance to exercise your speed, skill and number-recognition abilities, Bingo Billy gives you the opportunity to meet new people as well. At Bingo Billy, you’ll find the best deals in Bingo, which are unlikely to be found at your local Bingo hall. Start Playing Now!

 

The Birth of Online Gambling

Part 1.

By Calida Gaming.com

September 2008

 

Online Casino’s have been around since 1994, in the early days it would be fair to say it was a bit like the wild west.

Whilst there were certainly many good operators out there, there were almost as many bad ones. Many people in these pioneer days saw it as an opportunity to take peoples money and simply close up shop and run away.

This presented problems for all those in the industry that were trying to drag it towards credibility.

Being one of those original Pioneers we had to find a way to convince the public that we were of substance and were trustworthy, simply stating this in the “about us” section is not really good enough. Our approach was to use our history as our bond, having operated bricks and mortar Betting shops in the UK for many years and myself being a fourth generation Bookmaker.

This approach was also used by all the main high street Betting shop operators and proved a very solid foundation to build credibility.

This was however just the start, it was fine to be able to prove that you were from a trustworthy and credible background but we knew that everything we did from that day on would be how people judged us.

Of the big hurdles to get over, one of the biggest was the matter of software. Now it may seem simple 14 years later but in the early days, even up to 2000 it was not. Could we walk into PC World and ask for the Online Gaming Software section? No obviously we could not. So the next choice is to buy a custom built package or build one yourself.

The existing custom built packages at the time were very basic and as the industry was still so new, they were biased very much towards the designers opinion of what the online gaming public would want. This ranged from software designed by professional punters that was so complicated it was unusable to the general public, to software that had been designed solely by computer developers that required a Degree in computer science to place a single bet.

 

So many of us took the path of building our own, sounds simple right? Wrong.

In a planning session with gaming staff and IT developers it does sound easy and we all fell into the trap of believing what was said when developers promised the world. The simple truth however is that with the best intentions the technology simply was not ready for the revolution we were attempting to make. It seems so obvious now in hindsight but that’s the way it always is.

So, we have a credible name, good solid plans of what we want and software that almost does it all. This in itself was quite an achievement in those days, add to this the fact that we were also taking the company public with an IPO on the London AIM market and that we made it through with our sanity mostly in tact is a miracle.

The IPO was scrapped as the Dot Com bubble burst right above our heads. Although we were frustrated by all the work that had gone into the IPO, the endless projections, the road shows with institutional investors, what it did for us was force us to have a very clear well planned out strategy.

Once the development is done and the software live (this was the first time I had heard the term “software version release 1”) we thought the hard work was over and it would be plain sailing from now on. Software is a funny creature that has a life all of its own, happily working 100% and then simply deciding it does not like Tuesdays so wont play today. Sitting here writing this and indeed chatting with other people from this time period it seems such an innocent problem, we are reputable people, our intentions are good and pure, we made our own software so we could give our customer the things we think he would want but its not quite working today…..

This was in fact a MONUMENTAL problem. You see Mr Joe Public who has somehow managed to find our site, in itself an achievement in the days of slow dial up Internet accounts and walled gardens such as AOL may have managed to sign up for an account, may have managed to get as far as making a deposit and now his tip of the week is about to run at Ascot and guess what?? He cannot log in.

Had this been in a UK Betting shop, we would at the very least be able to have a face to face conversation, our staff in the shops would always have a very good working relationship with all our customers. They would get an explanation about whatever technical fault had caused their problem and because they knew our staff and us, had a physical connection with us that would be that.

Online operations are somewhat different, how many people have been frustrated that they have an issue and all they can find is an email submission form??

How did we solve this??

This article is part of a series written to show today’s players where the industry came from and what day to day issues today’s online Casino, Bingo and Poker operators face.

For further parts of this story by the Author please visit  Calida Gaming