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The Popularity of Slingo Gaming

It’s incredible to think that it’s only been a few short decades that we have been enjoying online gaming. It’s also amazing to see just how far it has progressed over this period.

In the earliest days it was as simple and basic as the oldest kinds of videogames. The appeal lay largely in its novelty.

But novelty, by its very nature, soon wears off. So the online casino operators realised very early on that innovation would be key to attracting and retaining players.

So there was a very steep curve of new kinds of games and features being introduced. These included new versions of old favourites like roulette and blackjack, as well as hundreds of different slots games being introduced every year.

They also learned very quickly that slots were by far the most popular of all of the games, even though the very first of these was over a hundred years old.

Almost as popular was another game that had its origins in Depression-era America – bingo.

A brief history of slingo

But it took a real estate developer from New Jersey called Sal Falciglia to have the vision to bring the two games together, and slingo was born back in 1994.

Sal was a big fan of both games and, once he’d had the original idea, spent many hours working out the details of how it would work.

For the prototype, he adapted a standard five reel, five row slot machine to work out the mechanics of the game. Realising that it would be a natural for the emerging world of online gaming he soon got together with a digital developer and the rest is history.

As soon as bingo sites started to add slingo games to their roster it emerged that the inventor of the game had been 100% correct. It seemed that people just couldn’t get enough of it so variations on it soon started to proliferate.

Before long it was even starting to challenge traditional bingo games in terms of its all-round popularity.

How to play the game

While there are now countless different slingo games available to play, the same basic principles still apply across them all.

At its heart, it’s a standard 75-ball bingo game but with several other very special features.

All games feature a 5 x 5 bingo card filled with random numbers between 1 and 75. Below this grid there is a single 5 x 1 slots-style reel that spins ten times each round. If any of the numbers that land on the reel are also on the grid then they’re crossed off.

You then can win prizes for slingos, these are lines of five crossed-off numbers either vertically, horizontally or diagonally.

The extra dimension that selecting numbers this way provides is that other characters can appear on the reel. These typically include the Joker and the Super Joker that act as wilds crossing off any number on the grid – very handy if you’re just one number off completing a slingo.

There are usually also symbols that give you extra free spins or even spot cash prizes.

There’s also an element of peril introduced too, thanks to the devil. When he comes up it means that even if you have some matching numbers on a spin they won’t be crossed off on the grid.

So what’s the special appeal?

Sal Falciglia was right in his assumption that if you take two popular games and combine them they will have a special appeal all of their own.

But what has really made slingo take off is the extra dimension that it brings to a game of bingo. The very fact that the numbers are delivered on a spinning reel makes it far more involving than simply seeing them marked off on screen – and involvement is one of the key principles that lead to gaming enjoyment.

Then there are the extra features borrowed from slots like the free spins and the cash prizes awarded seemingly randomly.

And, above all, there’s the ability to introduce all kinds of themes into slingo games. So if you visit any site you’ll find versions that are linked to popular slots games like Rainbow Riches. Some also feature popular TV shows like Deal or No Deal and it all makes for a more exciting and different gaming experience.

Last, but by no means least, slingo is the sort of game that is fast to play and easy to dip in and out of whenever you have a moment or two in the day.

It’s also set to become even more entertaining in the future as technology progresses. Especially exciting is the prospect of bringing virtual reality into play to create a truly immersive experience.

Although, for the moment, the current actual reality is more than thrilling enough for most of us.