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Thursday, 30 April 2009

Happy 102nd birthday to the 'oldest bingo player?'

what is the secret to a long and healthy life? A report a few years ago suggested that bingo kept the mind active and improved the brains functions, which could explain how this lady is celebrating her 102nd birthday!!!!!
Anne from Bradford celebrated this momentous occasion by going down to her local bingo to have a game. She has been doing this for decades and frequents the club around five days a week!! Before the club was opened she would travel for miles around on the bus to get her bingo fix.....much to the worry of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren!!!!!!

Congratulations to you Anne.....and keep on winning. You are putting us 'young-uns' to shame!!

Posted by Brett at 21:12 | Add your comments [0] | Links |

Friday, 24 April 2009

justice in the bingo!!!

A man has been jailed for 4 years after trying to guarantee themselves a win in bingo.....by robbing the place. After an attempt to rob a social club, Shaun Grooby then moved on to his local bingo club in Aylesbury where he managed to gain access to the clubs safe and £25,000 in cash. Fortunately justice has been served swiftly and this thief is now behind bars.

Posted by Brett at 23:36 | Add your comments [0] | Links |

A journalist who has actually been to a club for longer than five minutes!!!!

Check out this meaty article from the local press recently about modern day bingo. The thing I like about this is that the journalist writing the article has actually made the effort to get away from the 'easy' stereotypical view of the bingo industry. It actually portrays a truer view of the industry and also highlights the more positive aspects of the clubs-including the new technology and the new younger players that are visiting the halls. A couple of things in the article stick out a bit though.......the chance to win £3.25million on a link game is a slight exaggeration (maybe the complementary drinks had taken there toll by then!!) but I am just nitpicking really on an article that can only be positive for the industry. Nice one Ingrid!!!!!

Posted by Brett at 23:20 | Add your comments [0] | Links |

Monday, 13 April 2009

you'll never get rid of the dabbers!!!!!

A story has grabbed me this month about a club that has decided to turn it's back on the 21st century bingo.....and is giving the traditional game another chance.

For those of you that are not in the know the bingo world has changed in club in the last couple of years. Go to your local hall now and you will find electronic gaming sections where players can take portable consoles to there seats instead of the 'old fashioned' paper tickets and mark there numbers off with a stylus instead of a dabber. There are even terminals where you can swipe your membership card and play via a touch screen interface, which can even claim for you via a press of a button!

The technology in club is moving so fast in fact that even I don't know the precise details of the latest developments in the playing of the game! Handheld consoles were only just introduced when I left the clubs to join the windswept and exciting world of TV, so this high-tech style of play is something that I am not overly familiar with. I have played in clubs though over the last few months and have become accustomed with the beeps and shouts from people who have won on the these new contraptions and have a certain affinity with what older generations of customers have to say about the new style of playing. Whether I agree with them however is another matter:

When handheld consoles were first introduced in our small club in Bognor Regis, the general consensus was that they would never work (including from myself). Why would you want to tap a screen instead of dabbing the numbers off yourself? Wouldn't it take the fun away from the game? However after a few weeks of them being in the club we were finding that more and more people were opting into this new style of playing: our newer players were finding it easier to keep up with the bingo, especially as the computers kept them informed of when they were waiting for one number, and our regular players were beginning to see the positive sides of playing via this method (you can play more than 6 tickets on these consoles which means more chance of winning)

In today's climate, the bingo world is looking for more and more ways to keep there heads above the water. This new technology not only opens the possibility to generate much needed revenue; but it also captures the minds of the younger breed of players and gets us ever closer to a possible union between the online market and the bricks and mortar halls: Just think about the possibility of playing one EPIC game between players in the hall's, online and on the TV at the same time......now that's a game that I would LOVE to call!!!!!!!

No matter what side of the bingo coin you look upon.......the advances in the bingo world are here to stay......but perhaps the paper bingo is here to stay also?.........As long as there's still a job for me in the long run then I am happy!!!!!!!!

Posted by Brett at 22:57 | Add your comments [0] | Links |

Monday, 6 April 2009

All the 999's, lifesaving time!!!!!!

Nice sweet story in the press this week regarding a woman who's life was saved by an off-duty paramedic whilst down at the bingo. Luckily the paramedic was at the right place at the right time because he was only dropping off his wife at the club and not playing himself.

Heart attacks, unfortunately are rather more common occurrences in the bingo than anyone would like. I think in my career it has happened in club about half a dozen times: There was even a time in a club in Brighton where someone had actually passed away quietly during the session and was not discovered until someone realised that they hadn't come up to get there main session tickets like they normally did!

The weird thing is though, in every situation that I have had with someone falling ill during the session; the bingo still has to be played!!!! I have had to call bingo when the paramedics have arrived and are tending to the stricken customer....which I thought was odd the first time.....until I thought about it and realised that it is better to keep on playing rather than stopping the session and drawing all of the attention onto a very personal situation.

Don't worry though: in all bingo clubs that I know, a first-aider has to be on site at all times; which means that if the worst was to happen you are never far away from help and assistance.

Posted by Brett at 21:00 | Add your comments [0] | Links |

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