Reconciling Digital Bingo with its Classic Roots

Bingo is one of the older games still enjoyed on a mass-scale today, though not in its original form. Rather, bingo has found continued success through its ability to evolve, to combine aspects of contemporary culture with its timeless base appeal. In the modern age, it`s been the digital shift that best illustrates this move. Recently taking what is likely the most profound leaps in evolution the game has seen yet, bingo still maintains its popularity, but how did it accomplish this feat?

A Modern Illustration

When playing modern bingo online, players are given dozens of different options to choose from. From more traditional efforts like Housey Bingo to relationships with other hit media like Deal or No Deal, players have more than just the number of balls to choose from. With each bingo game taking a slightly different direction, they each incur a different challenge, yet through the consolidation of many years of streamlining, they all succeed.

The Immutable

When looking back at the origins of bingo, or Lo Giuoco del Lotto D`Italia, there is one core component that always held true. This is the social aspect. No matter how much the game changed nations and setup, no matter how many cultures it traveled, the ability to play and communicate with other people always served as the backbone. It`s perhaps no surprise then, that modern online bingo titles absorb this lesson in its entirety.

"Bingo" (CC BY 2.0) by Kevin Doncaster

Fulfilling the task of adding communication into bingo could have gone many ways, though the actual route taken was more of an expression of how the early internet worked. Back in the dial-up days, simple text chatrooms were a revelation. They were also simple to implement and manage, and thus made perfect fits for how online bingo would evolve.

Starting in 1996, when online casinos first appeared, digital bingo parlours would consistently rely on chat integration to make the game have the same appeal as its roots. People could just chat, or they could encourage or challenge, and this idea kept the game at the forefront of online casino consciousness.

With text-chat serving as the base-line, those familiar with other players in person or online could use exterior programs to take chat one step further. With synchronized tables, a group of friends could play on their phones as they would in a bingo room, only with much less clean-up and a much more open dress code.

At a distance, users could involve voice or video chat programs like Discord or Zoom to share in their play. Simple, convenient, and taking the all-important communication a step further, these elements together created a digital industry that challenges the biggest ever seen physically.

"Discord booth" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Gage Skidmore

With the potential for VR and AR integration just around the corner, bingo has some major steps left to explore before it begins to run out of new technology to exploit. Even then, the central appeal of bingo games is such that, no matter how old the game becomes, it should always succeed. We don’t know for sure what bingo will look like a decade from now, but if history is any indicator, it will only be bigger than ever.