Unlike the headline in a piece about online bingo in the Sunday Telegraph entitled “Online bingo is a mecca for the middle classes” I feel that online bingo is for everyone. I don’t believe for one minute that the online bingo business is restricted to the middle classes at all; I would describe myself as working class and I obviously like to play online bingo. I don’t think the intent of the journalist, Rowena Mason, was to portray the online business as for the middle classes only merely that the title would suggest it.
Having been interviewed by Rowena Mason for the article she did seem very interested in the business as a whole and I am definitely on a buzz being quoted alongside the likes of Gigi Levy, the CEO of 888 who own 888Ladies.
I’m not however overly impressed with the fact that bingo online is described as a “guilty pleasure” with the implication that online bingo players wait until everyone is out of the house to participate in a game of bingo at their favourite site. I have never hidden the amount I spend nor the amount of time I play online bingo from my husband yet the last paragraph of the article insinuates this happens with a quote from one player stating “her family do not know how much she spends on bingo.”
Another quote in the article is from a male online player who states that he isn’t interested in participating in chat at an online bingo site; it’s all about the winning for him. For this male bingo player the anonymity of online gaming is one of the plus points as he finds playing online bingo “less embarrassing than sitting in a room with 400 elderly ladies.” Isn’t this proof positive that online bingo is for everyone?
In the article Rowena speaks to three players; myself, Katie and James. I’m a 38 year old mother of three, Katie is a 35 year old call centre worker from Leeds and James is a 25 year old complaints manager. None of us appear to be middle class more your average working class type of people so where does the heading “online bingo is a mecca for the middle classes” come from?
In my time in the online bingo industry I have met people from all walks of life and all classes; working, middle and upper classes – this in itself would indicate and validate my statement that online bingo is for everyone and is not defined by classes or status, merely a platform for enjoying a game of bingo with others that enjoy playing too.
