How the simple game of bingo can be beneficial

When you play a game of bingo, you don’t really imagine that it would bring you anything more than a bit of light entertainment and perhaps the possibility of winning a cash prize. But, it appears, bingo has hidden depths, because for many players, it’s a game that not only helps them keep their brains stimulated and active, it’s also got a big social element to it too.

Look at any of the bingo sites online such as Winner Bingo or Cheeky Bingo and you’ll see that games can be played at any time of the night or day. Whenever you buy a ticket for a game, you gain access to the chat room that is linked to that particular game. And in the chat rooms, you’ll have the chance to speak to any of the other players in the room. Even at quiet times there’s always the chat moderator to talk to, even if there aren’t many other players present. And, immediately, you and the other people there have something in common – the game that you’re playing. It’s a great starting point for a conversation and you’ll probably find the conversation is sometimes about bingo and then can go off at a tangent about any other topic under the sun.

If you play at Bingo Winner, you can even build up a player profile and tell other players a little more about yourself before you begin to chat. And looking at other players’ profiles can help you decide if they sound like your kind of person too. And while you can play on a public profile, you can also choose to play with your Buddies only – people you’ve befriended on the site, so it’s a little like having your own private chat room whenever you want it. Of course, the traditional game of bingo in a bingo hall can be social too, but you’re not always free to chat when you want to – a certain amount of quiet is expected during play as people have to listen out to the number calls.

But bingo doesn’t only bring social benefits; it can help you keep your brain active too. When you play in the traditional way, you have to scan your cards quickly, and check off any matching numbers to the calls as quickly as possible in order to win. This needs good hand /eye coordination. Through playing games such as bingo you are giving your brain exercises which help keep you mentally alert. A research project carried out by the University of Southampton in the UK between people who played bingo and those that did not showed a higher level of memory, mental speed and the ability to absorb information in the regular bingo players. It also showed that younger players were generally quicker at filling in their bingo cards, but older players were usually more accurate.

The online version of bingo won’t necessarily help to give your brain a workout, as most people play with the auto-daub feature, where their matching numbers are marked for them by the game software. However, if you want to, there’s always the option of switching the auto-daub feature off and doing the work of the game yourself. It makes the game more challenging and you’ll be helping retain your mental agility – sounds like a plan!

So, next time you log in to play a game of bingo, give it a bit of credit. It may be easy, but it’s helping you in more ways than you might have thought!