What is a 'bingo raider'?

Sitting in an online bingo chat room last night and just watching the text scroll as players and chat hosts interacted it became apparent that there is a bit of a stigma attached to being a 'bingo raider'. At first I wasn't entirely sure what was going on, the chat host kept making mention to the room to 'watch out raider about', so what is a 'bingo raider'?

Could it be something really sinister? After all hearing the term 'bingo raider' for the first time instantly reminded me of 'Darth Vadar' and interestingly enough raiding has relevance to the 'dark side'. It all becomes clearer as you watch the bingo chat games being played. These are ways to win loyalty points and some of the games played see points awarded determined by the winner of the bingo game. If the winner is not in chat this is consider to be playing 'dark'; however another reason could be that a player is buying bingo cards in multiple rooms which is called 'room raiding' and this is where the term 'bingo raider' comes from.

Now whilst I can understand the frustration of the players enjoying bingo online but who are losing points from chat games because another player is either playing in multiple rooms or choosing not to be in chat, is it really necessary to give them a label and one that seems to have not so pleasant connotations to it?

As a bingo player myself I'm not overly keen on the chat games where winners are determined by the game winner so wouldn't it simply be better to run bingo chat games that AREN'T determined by the bingo winner?

Well I hope that clears up any questions you may have about what a bingo raider is.

Written by Freya Barber

19th March 2010