Playing bingo in the UK makes you accustomed to calls. When playing the best bingo online in the UK, you’ll hear callers attach different nicknames to the numbers. You might be wondering why there are references to phrases like cups of tea and little ducks.
The history of Bingo Calls
Bingo calls are gotten from a combination of rhyming phrases, puns, and slangs that are peculiar to specific numbers. The main process of drawing out balls with numbers is time-consuming. Calls are used to make the process lively and keep the players engaged. You’ll find that some of the calls have responses.
Some of the bingo nicknames originated from the military slangs of the twentieth century. For instance, Number 9, Doctor’s Orders is from the slang used to refer to a laxative pill administered to troops. The origins of most of the names stemmed from the 1950s and 1960s. 77 Sunset Strip came from the TV detective series of the era. 76 Trombones was named after the song from The Music Man, a 1957 musical.
Bingo calls are used to differentiate all the 90 numbers of the game. This helps to make it easy to distinguish between the numbers, especially if you are far from the caller.
Bingo in 2022
Bingo is currently undergoing some revolution. Some woke individuals have made a move to get rid of certain language from the calls list. Regular calls like “two fat ladies – 88” are up for removal from the calls to avoid getting anyone upset. These millennials pushing for a change said that they’re tired of the traditional calls. They added that modern names such as “Wills and Kate – 88” will be cool.
If these changes are considered and approved, a lot will change for the bingo calls. Names such as Brexit, Tinder, and avocado will become regular at the calls. “Time for tea – 83” will be replaced by “gluten-free – 83”.
Foxy Bingo, an online gaming site is chiefly behind the move for a change. In line with this, it asked its customers to vote for the top 20 favourite new calls. These new calls will be based on chat rooms suggestions. Jonathan Bowden, the director of Foxy Bingo discussed how they have recorded a huge number of younger bingo players in recent time. “The new wave of bingo calls is switching things up. I am sure it would be long before Megxit is being used,” he said.
According to Bowden, the company is working on making some adjustments to accommodate the new names this year. However, someone thinks otherwise about the change of names. Blake Robinso who has won the award for Bingo Caller for the year 12 times thinks adopting the new names will confuse players. He is of the opinion that replacing traditional calls would be a big shame. Instead of introducing new calls, he believes that the new generation should be taught about the traditional calls to maintain Britain’s bingo tradition.
Bingo is being played by almost 4 million people in Britain. It currently has 615 registered bingo halls there and is gaining popularity online.
