This week a British company became the first ever to offer Facebook users the chance to play games for real cash prizes on the social network. Gamesys, the company behind the Jackpotjoy bingo sites, is the only company to offer real money gaming on Facebook, though for now only UK players can sign up.
The games will be available through an app called Jackpotjoy Friendzy, which contains many different bingo and slots games. It's no surprise that bingo is blazing a trail in terms of the games available on Facebook, as it's now the second most popular game or pastime indulged in by people in the UK.
Though the game of bingo originated in Italy and became a craze in the United States, the British have branded the game with their unique stamp through the rhyming slang they invented to identity the ball numbers in the bingo name.
Most of us are familiar with the two fat ladies who denote the numbers 88, but what are some of the other strange and amusing phrases used to identity bingo numbers?
Many bingo rhymes are obvious – just like Cockney rhyming slang they sound like the numbers they represent. So for instance we have number ‘3 cup of tea’, ‘26 pick and mix’ and ‘32 buckle my shoe’. Other rhymes are less obvious, such as ‘65 old age pension’. We understand of course that 65 is the age at which Britons retire and start claiming their old age pension, but it still sounds a little odd, as the phrase doesn’t match the sound of the numbers.
Seasoned bingo players would, of course, say that it's all in the tone of voice used by the bingo caller. Which leaves us wondering what tone of voice the bingo caller uses when 71 emerges from the hopper, the modern phrase for which is ’71, J-Lo’s bum’!
