Bingo games have always been hugely popular, and although one early manifestation of bingo was played exclusively by bored French aristocrats, it is now truly a great leveller, with all walks of society and all income groups enjoying it.

This is especially so since the advent of online bingo. With the recent great increases in internet download speeds and advances in online security, bingo has truly come of age. Like gambling in general, it has transcended its high street limitations and there is no longer any snobbery or stigma involved when you play a bingo game or place a bet on the horses.

This is one of the ways in which the internet has proved a boon in helping to corrode the old class boundaries which have so bedevilled England in particular down the centuries. You’re as likely to find a duke or duchess playing online bingo as the pub landlord.

Bingo in its online version reproduces electronically the traditional method of playing the game. There is an online equivalent of the usual card marked out into five columns each of five numbered boxes, and the aim of the game is still to match your numbers up to a prearranged pattern announced by the ‘Caller’ before the game commences.

Play scratch cards and online slots between bingo games, just as you would in the high street, and even chat with online friends in the chat rooms. All that’s missing is the tea and biscuits, but you can supply them yourself.