Bingo has a deep and storied history of being tied to charity. Bingo was popularised with church and community groups, and often was played during fundraisers for charitable causes. Bingo fundraisers would raise money for everything from small community projects to national or worldwide non-profit drives. The charitable history of bingo continued when bingo halls started to open. Many bingo halls had and still have nights where proceeds go to benefit non-profit causes. However, now that bingo has gone online, does the game still hold steady as a source of charitable fundraising?
When playing online bingo, it is easy to focus simply on the jackpots and prizes available. However, it is a well-known fact that online bingo sites are a destination for online socialising, with their popular chat rooms where players can discuss bingo and non-bingo topics alike. Some bingo sites even provide social networks where players can create profiles and upload photos. This creation of a social atmosphere makes the world of online bingo less like a faceless Internet website and more like the social clubs that used to form in real-life bingo halls.
Some online bingo bonus sites have decided to give back to charity, in the classic tradition of bingo, and the online community has helped immensely with these efforts. Bingo site moderators often interact with the players to discover which charities the community would be interested in playing for. Then, many sites offer charity games on a regular basis, where players commit to donating winnings to a certain charity. Multiple charities are often featured, so players can choose who they’d like to play for. For some of these charity games, the site will donate a certain amount of pounds to a charity for each player who participates – so you can know you are donating money to charity just by playing bingo. Some sites also have a monthly or weekly featured charity, where a percentage of profits from a given week or month is given to one charity. If you participate regularly in bingo forums or chat rooms, you yourself can make some suggestions about new and innovative ways to help charity via online bingo. So while bingo is about fun, it can also be about giving back!
By Jamie Baume
In addition to helping charities, Bingo games are also usually played for education. Unlike other gambling games, bingo can also be played just for fun rather than winning money.