In one form or another, bingo can be dated back almost five centuries, when a game called Lo Giuoco del Lotto dItalia was played in Italy around 1530. However, in its current state, bingo is a comparatively new game, as it was not until 1929 when Edwin Lowe saw a game called beano being played at a carnival in Atlanta. Seeing how enthused the players were, he evolved the game into a saleable state and the name change, from beano to bingo, is said to be one of accident, as a player who won shouted bingo instead of beano.

o How popular is online bingo?

In a single word, massively. Since the decline of offline bingo during the 1990s, online bingo has seen a boom since the turn of the millennium and outside of the US alone, turnover for online bingo is estimated to be over one billion dollars.

In the UK, the figures are even more impressive. It was recently documented in a survey of leisure activities that online bingo was the most popular past time for females under the age of 25.

Regarding where to play online bingo, the choice is gigantic. There are hundreds of individual online bingo halls within the UK, a large amount of which have offline halls too, but the market is dominated by five companies, with market shares of 19 percent, 16 percent, 13 percent, 10 perecent and 7 perecent.

o Is offline bingo still played?

Although bingo halls are becoming defunct throughout Europe, several still exist in certain parts of the world. For example, Buenos Aires has seen a recent surge in offline bingo and it is extremely easy to find a bingo game, of any variation, anywhere in the area.

In addition, whilst online bingo in the UK is the fastest growing over anywhere else in the world, it is estimated that less than 5% of offline players actually play online.

Furthermore, bingo is still one of the primary games played at smaller events, such as church fairs or village fetes, as well as being massively popular in the casinos in the most famous gambling area in the world, Las Vegas.

o Which is better, online or offline bingo?

That is entirely an individual persons choice. It is without question that online bingo is now more popular and because of this reason, the prizes are regularly much greater than in games played offline. Furthermore, online bingo allows players to participate in several games at once, therefore increasing their chances of taking home a large amount of winnings quite considerably.

However, many believe it is difficult to beat the thrill that is apparent in brick and mortar bingo halls. The intensity that is apparent during a bingo game is seen as electric, especially when a line has already been called and only one or two numbers stand between players and the final jackpot amount.

Deciding on whether online or offline bingo is better is the players choice and their requirements should be taken into consideration before providing a definite choice.

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