I've always wanted to go to a real bingo game, and last Sunday, armed with a borrowed blobber, which I have been told is actually known as a dabber, I reckon it sounds better as a blobber, I went to Beacon Bingo in Northampton accompanied by a few of my work mates in the first of our Xmas nights out. As you can guess from the photos, we went in costumes - pirates. The experience was a lot different from the bingo games I used to play in my English classroom.
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Pirate Bingo, the start of Xmas work fun! |
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Blobber, check! |
The atmosphere in the hall is really intense, it's almost like no one is breathing properly as the numbers start, as soon as a 'claim' is made the whole hall exhales. Phew! The numbers are called at quite a sharp pace so you have to concentrate to keep up with what's been called. The whole thing is computerised, the numbers are produced from a computer, each bingo sheet has a number reference associated with it, so that when a 'bingo' is called, a member of staff shouts this number and the computer can tell the officials if it's a valid bingo or not.
Twenty quid buys you six books to play over about ten games of bingo. The session starts at 19.30 and lasts from about two hours with a few breaks here and there. There is a mixture of games played nationally and within the Northampton bingo hall we were in. The prizes got progressively more lucrative as the evening went on, up to £1000 for a line.
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Me and my bingo buddy. |
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No Bingo prizes for me this evening. |
I didn't win anything, shame, I had already earmarked the money for a plane ticket somewhere. We did have one winner in our group, Sophie, she won twenty quid for getting a line. Probably not somewhere I'd go every week, but it was a different night out.
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Rest of the 'motley crew'. |
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