Anyway, it turns out that I’ve really been missing the point of bingo. It’s  a long story as to why, but I found myself taking advantage of a ‘free bingo‘ offer from a bingo game site. You basically get £20 of free credit to play in the room, but normally games cost between 5p and a couple of quid to take part.

The game is just like its offline counterpart (albeit without the sticky floor). Numbers get ‘drawn’ by means of software, and then crossed off your gaming card as they come out. The winner is the first person to get all of the numbers struck off on a single card.

Sounds pretty dull, what with there being no skill involved, but I actually enjoyed the experienced. The reason was actually more to do with the chatroom that accompanied the game rather than the game itself. I’ve always been a sucker for online chat, and this was a great example of the genre with a very funny crowd of regulars who made the new boy feel quite at home.

I found it pretty interesting just because it didn’t have lots of money at stake, and the social aspect was so compelling and I’m prepared to admit to a (reluctant) liking for the whole experience.

Newmarket was my gran’s favourite card game and it’s simple to play for players of all ages. Essentially, the 4 kings are the ‘horses’ and each player has to ‘back’ one of these horses by placing 2p on it at the start. They also have to contribute 2p to a pot. The cards are dealt out between the players, with one being held back as a ‘float’.

The first player puts down the lowest card they have in any particular suit. If someone else has the next card, they put it down and so on and so on. If the next card in a run isn’t held by any of the players (i.e., it’s in the float) then that player has to start again with the lowest card from an opposing colour. So if the previous run was Hearts, then the player has to go with either Spades or Clubs.

If the run reaches a Queen, then the player holding that Queen gets to take all the money from the appropriate King. The game continues until one person has got rid of all their cards. The person then gets to take all the money from the pot.

It’s a really simple game which is lots of fun to play as a family during events like Christmas etc.

The danger doesn’t have to be the danger of getting our head kicked in by a leery protagonist on the street or the chance of us losing a limb on a mountain side. The danger of losing a large amount of money will unlock exactly the same physical responses in a certain kind of person. Their heart rate will rise. Their palms grow clammy. Their entire mental focus will become concentrated on a single immediate goal: winning.

It’s a high-wire act that very few people can successfully pull off – must of us crumble under the pressure of situation where we can win or lose everything. But even someone like me can see that that thrilling physiological response and the emotional energy it must release is powerful and compelling and speaks to something very primal in our nature.

I can only imagine that his own thrill level must have been through the roof. It is this seeking after danger that makes so many people dally with death. Be it the ski-jumper, the jay-walker, the bareknuckle fighter, the pilot, the astronaut. All of these types of people take the gambling impulse to it’s logical extreme – to literally dice with death. They might stack the deck in the their favour with safety equipment but the chance of death is nontheless present and very real.

Taken in that context, the kind of dilly-dallying that most people consider to be ‘gambling’ – the turn of a card, the drop of a ball – seems trivial. But it is very much on the same experiential curve.

I believe in my possessions. I’ve got them there in my hands. I can touch, smell, feel the money I’ve got. Those would-be millions don’t crystalise in my head in the way that I suspect they do in the mind of the serious gambler.

Ultimately, that’s why I always say no to card games where there’s money involved. While my mates embark on their foolhardy games, with piles of money on the table, I crouch in the corner barely able to watch. I’m envious of the winners, sure, but never enough to get involved.