Bingo Numbers Gone
The iconic image of a bingo hall for many people is a large room full of people hunched around tables covered with cards as a outlandish bingo-caller charms the players by announcing the numbers drawn using the peculiar rhyming names of bingo. Everybody has heard of ‘two fat ladies, 88’ and the number-calling ritual is seen as part of the fun.
The names given to numbers in bingo come from a variety of different sources, and in fact different clubs around the country often use different names for some numbers. The names were derived in some cases from Cockney Rhyming slang or other similar systems. Also, many of the numbers have a particular significance in British society, such as ‘Old Age Pensioner - 65‘ because 65 is retirement age in the UK.
Some numbers got their names from their shapes such as ‘two little ducks - 22’.
Many modern bingo clubs have done away with the announcements and instead relay on displays to convey the numbers to the eagerly waiting players.
There are two reasons for the demise of bingo number calling from clubs when they commercial viability and practical efficiency.
Originally, a special machine would use air jets to randomly select the numbered bingo balls from a cage as each game was played. The delay as each ball was sucked out of the cage by the machine and then delivered to the waiting bingo-caller left enough time for the caller to do his job and announce the numbers to the gathered players. However, modern bingo clubs use computerised random number generators (RNGs) to draw the numbers and the results are displayed on large screens.
In these times as many bingo clubs are struggling to compete with other forms of entertainment the more bingo games that can be played in a session the better. A key element to the speed of a game is the rate which the numbers are drawn. It is much quicker to display numbers automatically than have a bingo caller retrieve the numbered balls and announce the results manually. The more games that are played the better the profit margin for the bingo hall operators and that is much more persuasive that any feelings of sentiments towards preserving the old charm of a bingo caller.
The second reason is that many veteran bingo players prefer the new computerised number generators for the same reason; it is quicker. Rather than suffering the delay between numbers that occurred with the old blower and ball systems, bingo players would rather have the next number as quick as possible. After all, the next number might be the winner and who wants to wait to find out?
With modern online bingo played over the Internet number-calling is even less important but those who want a taste of the old times can still find number-calling in smaller local bingo clubs around the country.
In the News Archives
