Is playing BINGO just for old people?

@bttrfldBurton2025ueieEnthusias I guess so. I never played at a regular“bingo place” so at least my friend is with me :)

I seem to remember playing Bingo in Kindergarten. And I hope that was the last time I ever “play” it.

@Zaku lol, must have been a very bad experience:(

@RayaHope Heh, yeah, it bored me even then. I like interesting games, and I’ve been into games since about then, and what it takes for a game to interest me has grown over the years, so spending time “playing” a game that has almost no skill or choice involved (other than managing to maintain attention), seems like a huge missed opportunity to me.

I don’t care for it. No challenge and people don’t like to talk much. But I say try it. Some of my favorite memories are bad experiences shared with a friend.

Hans Lando & I say…no!

You mean, B lah I ‘m N ot G oing O ut ?

Yeah, it’s a geezer thing.

No actually, I played when I was 9. It was very exciting! Waiting for the ball and stamping my ‘board.’ Than I saw others with 15 boards in front of them. I never played again.

Casino bingo is awesome! Old people just know what’s up. I used to play fairly often but they shut down for Covid and haven’t reopened yet.

@JLoon lol! That’s what I thought :)

@WhyNow Oh so some people can play more games than others. Sounds kinda unfair to me :(

^^Some people play unfair games!!!

@WhyNow some people should be ashamed.

@cheebdragon I’d be afraid to go to a real casino. I never could understand all the rules and bad guys that are in those places.

Decades ago an acquaintance of mine designed, built, and patented an electronic bingo handset to help his grandmother who could no longer hit the mark very accurately. Nice idea.
The device looked like a large calculator with an LCD screen that would display the boards and allow you to enter the called number in any of 3 ways: type in the call yourself, let the device do it with voice recognition or let the device communicate by radio from the caller. The device would light up and beep when you won. You could even use it to play more than one board if you paid for another.
People with disabilities liked it because it never made a mistake. Other users liked it because it never made a mistake. The house liked it because it never made a mistake. Great idea, Right?
It turned out to be evil.
He gave a few of the units away at first. As people played they saw others with units winning so they wanted them, too. Also it enabled people to play more and more boards. First 2, then 4, then 8, then 16 boards. The only limit was the device’s memory.
Soon, the house was selling more boards than they ever thought possible. Very few people with handsets played only 2 boards. It became like an arms race. The numbers increased ridiculously.
Sadly, instead of playing for $1 the units encouraged people to play $16 each game.
After seeing the results from a short trial he killed the project on his own.
I still have a handset somewhere. Maybe the Smithsonian would want it.

@LuckyGuy WOW that does sound like a gimmick that snowballed into madness.

@RayaHope Yep. He spent a fair amount of time and effort on the design. He truly did not see that coming. He just wanted to help grandma.
Now anyone can build something like this with an Arduino in a short time. I just looked on Google patents and see there are dozens of patents for similar devices.

30 years ago I had a Bingo caller’s license for Connecticut, included selling lottery tickets. Called for a church every other week.

I remember hipsters used to go to bingo halls all the time. Ironic geriatric vibes. Don’t know if this is still a thing.

(What is the Gen Z equivalent for “hipsters” these days?)

We actually got our 9yo a bingo cage for Christmas last year. It’s kind of like a giant stim toy.

And also bought a printable off of Etsy for ASL bingo. It’s a pretty fun learning tool for kids. :)

I’ve gone with friends a few times and except for the competition, it’s excruciatingly boring. And it’s not skill-based as much as luck.
Some do serve apps and cocktails so those are more fun.

My whole life is just a lotterry. So I guess no

@RayaHope If little old ladies and fragile geezers aren’t afraid to gamble in casinos, How dangerous could it possibly be? Casinos not only have cameras covering every inch of the property, they also have regular armed security guards and several dozen undercover guards that walk around and watch for suspicious people. Casinos are probably safer than police stations and military bases.

No. I LOVE bingo because I always end up winning more than anyone else.

I will say that nothing can make you hate a complete stranger more than being 1 number away from winning, and hearing someone yell “Bingo!”.

@cheebdragon I think I have watched too many movies with gambling and casinos where things get out of hand or the mob is involved. Oh and that happened to me tonight, one number away…grrrrrrr

This is the first time I’ve seen someone calling Bingo “old”. Is this an American thing? In my culture it’s a kid’s game. It’s a young game, if not too young. I used to make a Bingo set out of paper and paper clips for my kids in class to play, with the intention to help them remember their vocabulary.

Outside of class, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone playing Bingo.

It’s so boring.

Any age can play it. I think it’s actually good for children.

When I was a tween, I went to visit a relative in Jacksonville FL and she went to Bingo with her husband once a week. It was hours of sitting in a chair. I could never sit that long in a chair like that again. I found it very boring. Apparently it’s popular and a lot of people don’t find it boring, or they find the reward exceeds the boredom.

@RayaHope: I don’t gamble and I’m not in casinos too often, but they are very safe and full of security. Since there’s so much money at stake, they can’t have people acting stupid or committing robberies and stuff there. Casinos are also popular venues for concerts, shows, restaurants and shopping.

@Mimishu1995 “Is this an American thing? ”

Maybe. It’s a kids game in the US too, but at some point it became trendy to play it in nursing homes. Sometimes there’s money involved, and I imagine the rules are simple enough for older folks with some cognitive issues to follow along and participate with their friends.

Bingo at my local casino has a minimum prize payout between $500—$2,500 (depending on time of day) for each round and there are 15–18 rounds played during a session.

@cheebdragon I thought the experience of playing bingo with my friend last night was a bit boring sitting so long in that chair. They also only had kinda small payouts of up to 100 dollars. But with those big payouts you’re talking about, sounds a little less boring.

Anyone can play bingo. What’s age got to do with it? Just just not for me. But that being said I’ve seen oldsters like me jumping around and acting like morons on Tic Tok. Age is only a number. Whatever floats a person’s stick.

The local elementary school PTA does Bingo nights a couple times a year as fund raisers. They get companies to donate various prizes and they charge a couple dollars to get in, and parents bring their kids for an hour or two of bingo playing.

Unlike ‘adult’ bingo with paper numbers and rubber stamps, the PTA tells people to bring their penny jars and use pennies to cover the various spots.

Bingo: not just for old people :-)