The Gambling Virgin – my boyfriends tells you about his very first time

Bingo Chapter 1 – ‘Be gentle, this is my first time’…

As a 24 year old male, Bingo is an activity that I must confess has always been slightly strange and mysterious to me.

Images of old grannies with Blue Rinse hair, A fag hanging out of their mouth, and a little shopping trolley being pulled behind them is generally the first thing I think of when someone mentions the word Bingo to me.

Well, at least it was until I discovered that you didn’t just have to visit your local old person’s home to join in on the fun… As it turns out, you don’t even have to leave your desk (Or your home - I’m sure you wouldn’t dream of playing games during working hours)…

Anyway, after this realisation hit me, I decided to take a closer look at how bingo works, where you can play it, and what kind of people play it - all in the hope of finding out whether or not it’s actually any fun to play or not.

Having no idea how to even play the game, I confess to being a little anxious starting off here - There seems to be so much choice in terms of where you can play and even what *kind* of bingo to play - I really don’t even know where to start.

There’s plenty of alternatives to choose from, but why should you choose one place over any other? What differentiates the competition?

It all seems to come down to the bonus you get when you sign up. Talk of 10% cashback on deposits, £10 free gaming, no deposit required and competition entries all sound great, but really, what most interests me is making a quick bit of cash without much outlay.

I decided I’d give Gala Bingo a try… I was pretty sure I’d heard of them before, they offer £10 free when you deposit £10 and the advertising carries a photo of Sharon Osbourne along with it - who could possibly resist an offer like that.

I click on one of the adverts, only to be suddenly transported across the grand expanse of fiber optics that is the internet, to arrive on a page telling me more about my free £10 offer, and an even larger picture of the aforementioned X-Factor judge. Things are looking good so far.

I click on the Join now button and fill out the form - it all seems pretty straight forward so far - you choose a username, password, give them your email address and fill out the credit card information… It’s a fairly simple process and takes about 2 minutes.

Anyway, I finish the form, and I’m then redirected to the home page of the site with a great big red button presented to me announcing that you can ‘Play Bingo Now!’ - I’m feeling pretty excited at this point… I hope the effort is worth it.

I think I’ll come back here another time to play Deal or No Deal. I’m not proud to admit I enjoy the show, but there you go, it’s out there now and I can’t take it back… To be honest it’s just nice to see Noel back on Telly, especially now he isn’t joined by his custard coloured moron of a friend - Mr Blobby.

Anyway, enough about Noel, we’re here to play bingo…

The game is 90 Ball bingo, and the stakes are… Well… Surprisingly low actually…

It costs 5p a ticket, and I could potentially win around £30 - sounds ok to me… I’ve got £20 in my account and I plan to spend it all…

Aside from the bingo itself, I must confess to loving the chat room… It’s nice to know there are other humans joining in on all this exciting bingo activity.

There’s plenty of chatter going on, and surprisingly, everyone’s wishing everyone else good luck… I’ve got to say, this does seem strange, because in the end, if someone’s luck is better than yours, you’re going home empty handed…

I decide not to wish everyone luck, but instead wish them plenty of enjoyment [while I win the prize].

The basics of Bingo seem simple - it’s a bit like the lottery really.

Each ticket you buy is an entry. There are 6 tickets to a sheet, and you can buy a maximum of 5 sheets. So I have 30 chances to win every time. I like the sound of those odds.

On each ticket there are 3 rows, on each row there are 5 numbers. In order to win a prize, you need to fill in all five numbers on a row before anyone else manages to get there first. There are 3 rounds. One for the person who gets the first complete row, one for the person who gets 2 complete rows, and a final round for the person who gets all 3 rows filled out. If you win the last round, you can get the £30, if you win either of the first two you win £15.

You fill out the numbers on your sheets when they’re ‘called out’ on the screen. It’s exactly the same as the lottery really - there are 90 numbers, and they’re chosen completely at random.

I imagine a room of old men with their Bingo cages spinning around, pulling the numbers out then feverishly typing them into a computer in front of them - although I’m sure in reality it doesn’t really work like this.

Ok it sounds complicated, but really it’s not.

So I’ve bought my tickets, I’m ready to play, and I’m chatting with all the regulars in the chat room - I feel like a pro.

So, the seconds are counting down on the clock, I’ve got 30 seconds to wait until I can play… I can feel the anticipation creeping already.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there, otherwise I won’t have anything to write about next time.

Check back here in the next few days to see my next post… I’ll be filling you in with some of the nuances of the game, and you’ll be able to find out if I actually won, and if I did, how much I got.

See you then…