Introduction

Only a few casino games can boast true, crossover success. Sure, most casual gamers know how a casino works, what a slot machine looks like, and the difference between a game of roulette and blackjack.

However, games like bingo have been able to elevate themselves above this type of specialist casino audience, and have a crossed over into popular culture to a broad audience who have no interest in any other type of gambling aside from bingo, and perhaps other mainstream gambling competitions like the lottery. 

So, how did bingo rise to such heights and how has it maintained it’s status as one of the figureheads of the broader gambling world? Let’s take a look.

The Rise Of Online Bingo

As with so many other gambling games, bingo was a game that those in the industry originally thought would struggle to move online. Poker is another example of a gambling game that relied so much on physical interaction, entertainment, drama, whatever you want to call it. Other casino games could rely on their gaming mechanics, and so long as the online alternative could provide security and convenience, then their rise to prominence was inevitable.

There were different considerations for online bingo, mainly because it has such a social element historically attached to it. Ultimately, the rise of streaming technology meant that bingo games were able to bridge this gap, and it meant that playing bingo online for money became the new normal of the industry. 

It wasn’t just the convenience that playing bingo online brought into this vastly growing new type of gaming – but online bingo picked up on the sort of marketing and promotional ideas that had helped to elevate other gambling games to international success.

Specific areas of casino gaming focussed in on free spins, free credits, cost-effective marketing strategies, and this is what bingo platforms started to focus on, and it proved to be a major part of why the game started to move online in the early part of the 21st century. 

In the modern market, this takes the form of specific holiday bonuses, like Thanksgiving bingo cards, as well as creative twists on the original design, some involving more numbers, others involving lightning rounds, bonus features, other types of prizes – online bingo truly did branch out. 

Mobile-Driven Innovations

Now that bingo had cracked the online market, companies continue to follow the same blueprint that caused them to have such success. Casino gaming platforms moved into mobile apps, exploring mobile browser games, and bringing the social side of the game into a digital sphere. 

It worked for poker, and while poker might have a slightly bigger global market and more caveats that can help sell it online, the same principles applied. It followed the same generic marketing ideas that bingo was able to navigate. By conquering these hurdles and creating a digital-first approach that catered to a mobile audience as well as the original – it did not lose the audience share it had cultivated in the days predating the internet – quite the opposite, in fact. 

Appealing To A Traditional Audience

In countries like the UK – bingo halls were huge parts of the community. It’s no exaggeration to say that in their pomp, they would bring in hundreds of people a night. Some of the country’s biggest bingo halls could seat nearly 1,500 people. 

One of the misconceptions about the traditional bingo gaming industry is that it relies on an older audience. In fact, many in the industry have stated that it’s a generational audience, and although the traditional audience would go to bingo halls as a social event and to get out the house, the rise of online gambling meant that bingo companies had to adjust to this changing dynamic. This traditional audience stil visited bingo halls, but online companies brought in methods to facilitate online bingo as a social experience. 

Many would have live bingo number callers, others opted for a live chat where people could converse in the comments with each other, some promotional ideas would offer refer-a-friend style marketing strategies where players would get bingo credits – but all roads lead to online bingo, making it a more cost-effective way to play. 

Once this fused with convenience and a broader range of bingo games to choose from, it was only a matter of time before bingo became a crossover gambling success.

Conclusion

While there are some elements of bingo that stand out from conventional gambling games, the success of the online version has followed a similar route as all other casino gaming and sports betting markets. 

By being able to advertise their games to an international market this meant that a global audience could access their titles, and given that bingo was already a huge market before the internet, al of these pieces came together to ensure that online bingo became a crossover success just like the land-based version in the days preceding the internet.