Bingo was a game of chance that I loved playing with classmates at school, especially when the final exams were over but we still had to go to school for...I don't really know what for, to be honest. In our bingo games, each player would draw a 5x5 grid on a piece of paper, and write the numbers 1 to 25 in random order. Then the players would take turns calling out a number, and everybody would mark that number in their grids. When a player had marked all the numbers in one row, she could cross that row out. The first player to complete five rows and call out "Bingo" would win the game.
I didn't know then that adults played bingo too. Apparently the game was invented in 1929 in the US and has since been widely played all over the world, usually as a fundraising effort. Modern bingo has evolved into multiple variations and patterns.
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| While waiting for the bingo game to start |
1. Your age,
2. Your religion.
It doesn't matter whether you actually identify as Muslim. If your ID says you are Muslim, you are. And any attempt to dispute that--according to the sharia law--should be punishable by death. 😊
Anyway, this rule doesn't apply on a cruise ship, although the casino is operated by the same Malaysian company. So we went in just to have a look. There were slot machines, roulette and card games. We were really tempted to try, but no matter how long we stood and watched the players play, we couldn't understand the games. The easiest was the slot machine, but it was rather boring.
Then we discovered that we could play bingo. That sounded like something that didn't require much skill. Perfect. Eager to see how my childhood game was played in the adult world, we went to the hall where the game would be held soon. Every hall on the cruise ship would have a different activity/show/game every 30 minutes to entertain the hundreds of guests. To make sure that we had a good seat, we came early to the bingo hall and sat through a few other activities.
And then they started selling the bingo sheets. If I remember correctly, it cost RM30 for a set of three sheets, and if you buy two sets, you'd get one sheet free. So we bought two sets, and shared the seven sheets between us. The more players played and the more bingo sheets each player bought, the bigger the jackpot would be.
Sitting beside us were also some first timers. We wished each other luck. And the game started. The game host pressed a button on a machine and a random number lit up. We'd check our sheets and punch a hole on the number if we had it. The numbers were from 1 to 99. And the first person to have all the numbers on their sheet marked would win.
Sitting beside us were also some first timers. We wished each other luck. And the game started. The game host pressed a button on a machine and a random number lit up. We'd check our sheets and punch a hole on the number if we had it. The numbers were from 1 to 99. And the first person to have all the numbers on their sheet marked would win.
The game was highly charged. My partner and I helped cross-checking each other's paper to make sure we didn't miss or wrongly mark any number. I was only one number away from winning, but that one remaining number was never called out.
Someone at the back shouted bingo. He came to the front to hand over his sheet to be checked by the game host and another player. We were all hoping that he had made a mistake and that it had been a false alarm, but he was right. I think he won around RM900. It wasn't much, but who would say no to free money?
Feeling dejected, we agreed not to play any more game of chance (for the time being). So we went to the top deck to stuff ourselves with free food instead.
