Written by Jess at
http://www.onlinebingofinder.co.uk/. Jess has been with Online Bingo Finder from the very beginning, working her way up from wide-eyed bingo newbie to a bonafide bingo pro.
I hadn’t really considered trying out online bingo before – mainly because I had never really thought of bingo itself as a game I’d be interested in. I was stuck in that familiar mind-set of imagining seaside resorts stuffed full of blue rinse brigade pensioners and the smell of stale cigarette smoke. Pretty much like the places my Nan went when I was growing up. Although I always admired the community spirit you’d get in a traditional bingo hall and saw how much she loved her “jaunts” down the local club, it just didn’t really seem like my thing.
As a younger woman with plenty of interests, I didn’t really think bingo would be for my generation, which is why I was really surprised when a friend cajoled me into giving online bingo a go. She had just recently signed up to an online bingo site and was wanting to take advantage of their refer a friend offer. I dutifully responded, went round her house with my laptop, parted with a tenner and we spent the evening getting me signed up and started.
In a way, you could say I was hooked – but it wasn’t the gambling aspect that really got me. Mainly because I was pretty terrible at winning. I sat there for my first game, with absolutely no idea what was going on, enjoying watching my numbers tick off one by one and waiting, nay, yearning for the moment when I would win – and I didn’t. Unlike a lot of stories on the Internet, I did not have a run of beginners luck. In fact, I think in that first hour or so I spent pottering from one room to another in the virtual lobby, I won a grand total of... £2.23. It was hardly millionaires row.
But what I did find was that it was easy, friendly and above all – it was a bit of a laugh. Whilst we stocked up on our cards for the next game, my friend took me through the basics of online bingo – the free bonuses you can get, the loyalty points, the types of games on offer and most importantly, the chat room. My earliest experiences of internet chat rooms were from way back when, and often ended in a bit of an awkward proposition from a bit of a weirdo. All I encountered at my online bingo site were a group of lovely people that were happy to welcome me and talk at me in letters. I got to understand the acronyms - memo to self - if you are starting online bingo, you might want to learn the lingo.
After a couple more evenings spent being tutored by my mate, I felt ready to branch out and really get stuck in. I budgeted my weekly amount and really got into picking and choosing the hours and games I wanted to play at. That convenience impressed me further – I could just log on and turn up as and when I wanted to. I then started to realise there were a whole host of online bingo sites I could try my luck with (which had, thankfully, increased by that stage!) At last count, that number of online bingo sites is somewhere around the 450 mark. That leaves a lot of room for some truly terrible online bingo sites, but there are also plenty of good ‘uns that offer great prizes, players and atmosphere.