Meanings of the Word Bingo
There are many different uses of the word “bingo”. Most of us will be familiar with at least one of them, but it’s surprising how many other different meanings the word has. We won’t be providing a comprehensive overview of all the words in this article, but we’ve chosen 6 common uses of the word to write about.
Bingo is obviously a game that is played in bingo halls and online by many people. The game is a type of lottery, where each player initially chooses a game card with 15 random numbers from 1 to 75 or 1 to 90 written on the card.
The numbers are then drawn in a random order (electronically when playing online, or through a mechanical “ball-picker” when playing in a bingo hall), and the player marks off the corresponding numbers on their card. Once all the numbers on the card have been marked off, the player has won and stops the game by calling “house”.
There’s also a card game called bingo. Each player receives a set of cards, with some other cards dealt face down on the table. The face down cards are then turned over one at a time, with each player adding the value of their own cards to the value of the cards as they are turned over. The game features a round of betting before each turn of the card, with each player deciding if their total will be higher or lower than the other players’.
There is a famous children’s song about Bingo the Dog. The song is sung with the same verse over and over, replacing the letters of Bingo’s name as it is sung with claps. The main verse is:
There was a farmer had a dog And Bingo was his name-oh! B-I-N-G-O! (Or B-I-N-clap!-clap! etc.) B-I-N-G-O! B-I-N-G-O! And Bingo was his name-oh!
I came across another song called Bingo, by the British 90s pop group, Catch. The song was released in 1997, and is about a teenage boy venturing into the red light district in order to “become a man”. At the end of the song, the boy has succeeded in this process, but has been ripped off by the cost of a drink he had to buy.
There’s also a comedy film from the early 90s with the title Bingo. Bingo is a circus dog who runs away from the circus life. He befriends a young boy and they get up to various adventures until the heart warming end of the film (which I’m sure you can guess).
Bingo is the name of a town in Burkina Faso, a country in West Africa. Burkina has no coastline, but borders 6 other African countries – Benin, Togo, Niger, Mali Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Burkina Faso used to be known as The Republic of Upper Volta until it changed its name in 1984.
Jon Jackson is an online bingo specialist, with many years experience of owning and operating internet bingo sites in the UK.
