Best Bingo

By: Victor H Royer

There’s a famous local’s casino in Las Vegas, called: Arizona Charlie’s. It’s located on the West Side, on Decatur Boulevard, about 5 miles West of the Strip. Almost directly West of the Stratosphere Tower – which is that tall tower you see in all the photos and videos from Las Vegas.

What made it famous – apart from the great games and deals – was the fact that for many years – ever since it was built in the 1980’s – this was the only casino in Las Vegas with 24-hour Bingo. On the odd hour, all day and all night, this was THE place for Bingo in Las Vegas. I particularly enjoyed the late-night sessions, especially the 1 AM and 3 AM sessions. And since these sessions usually didn’t have as many players, this meant that you had the best chance to get at some of the bigger jackpots and payouts!

I also always marveled at the Bingo Professionals – those with lots of Bingo Cards spread all over the table in front of them – and a stack of colored daubers – and then watching their hands swiftly fly from one page to another and quickly daubing the numbers, all with perfect accuracy. It was amazing! At least to me, since I was a Bingo Novice much of the time. So, I usually got the machine, which keeps all the cards inside and automatically “daubs” each number as it is called. Much easier, particularly to someone like me with two left thumbs! At least when it comes to Bingo Daubing!

Of course, these days it is all a lot easier, especially online. And since the Pandemic even Arizona Charlie’s has stopped 24-hour Bingo, so things aren’t the same as before. But for those of you who can play online, it’s different. Because there you can play at any time, as much as you want. And there are great website smartbingoguide.com where you can get lots of terrific information. And even more for Bingo sites, where you can find out even more about ways to Win Big and Win Often!

And if you’re a novice – like I still am, to a certain extent – there are even strategies and rules which help you to not only learn to play Online Bingo, but to do it well – and Safely!

For example, did you know that it was not originally called Bingo? It started out as a lottery, most likely in Italy in the 15^th Century, as a sort of game of cards. Toward the end of the 18^th Century, some time in the 1770’s, the game found its way to France, where it was still played as a lottery, but this time with marked cards that kind of looked like Bingo cards. The way it was played was similar to what was called Bag Roulette in Shakespearian England, in the 16^th Century, where players would make wagers on a sheet with pictures on it, and odds, and then the result was a ball drawn from a bag of balls. This same principle was used in the 18^th Century in France, when they adopted that Italian game, still kind of called a lottery, but used the Bag of Balls method to draw the numbers.

But it wasn’t until the Americans got involved in the 1920’s that the game began to resemble the Bingo we know today. Back then it was called Beano, because the original intent was to use “beans” to mark the cards. And also to promote the promoter’s brand of “canned beans.” But – as the lore goes – apparently one night someone yelled “Bingo” instead of “Beano” – and the smart promoter of the game (and the canned Beans) quickly realized this was a fortuitous event, and so renamed the game Bingo, along with the rules as we know them today.

And so, dear friends, let us now Bingo on!

Best of luck to all!