The world of bingo has been rather turned on its head of late: the last decade has seen what will probably be the death knell of the industry, one that only really grew after WWII. Well, the death of the bingo industry in bingo halls that is, not the death of bingo games themselves: those atre just migrating online. There's a number of different things that have caused thisw death and it's worth running through them for some seem almost deliberate and others, well, that's just the way it is.
The most obvious problem that the bingo halls have had is the smoking ban. The people who were running them all make exactly the same point. Attendance dropped off right at the time of the ban and it simply hasn't risen again since. And this in itself causes further losses in attendance: bingo games, while being just as popular as ever, don't work all that well in large but empty halls. Something of a coordination problem there.
But the other major one, the one that's just happenstance, is the rise of the online bingo games. This is partly the availability of the technology, it simply wasn't possible to do this on any large scale only a decade ago. That the availability of this technology coincided with the smoking ban is just that: happenstance. But it does mean that those who like their game can do so from the comfort of their front rooms now, and simply don't need to brave the weather nor stop smoking while they play.
Bingo just isn't going to go back to the halls, whatever people try to do about it and with that ends one of the great post war leisure activities: beaten by a combination of technological revolution and government stupidity.
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