Bingo Daubers - Mark your cards right

Bingo daubers are the special felt-tipped marker pens that players use to mark their numbers in regular bingo clubs. Virtual daubers are also used in the online game for the same purpose, but at most online sites the numbers are daubed automatically for the player – something that comes in very handy when you’re playing a dozen or more cards at once.

Many online bingo sites allow you to adjust the virtual bingo dauber you use to mark your cards. You can usually change the colour of the “ink” so that the card is marked in red, blue, yellow, green and so on. You can also change the shape of the daub at most sites. Some only give you a choice between rudimentary shapes such as a circle, square and triangle. Other sites really go to town and allow you to daub with more complicated shapes such as stars and smiley faces.

In real clubs a lot of players are superstitious about the kind of bingo daubers they use, and the same trend is becoming apparent online, with players choosing to use the same colour “ink” and the same shape of daub at whatever site they visit. Other players make use of the bingo dauber options to make the game easier on the eyes – some colours of daub work better on different monitors or if a player has poor eyesight, for example.

Although the offline bingo industry makes a small fortune selling bingo daubers to players, the online equivalents are all free. Another advantage of online daubing is that, because the ink isn’t real, it never runs out in the middle of a big game!

Some bingo insiders believe that real-life daubers and tickets could eventually be replaced with electronic slates that will display both virtual tickets and virtual daubers in a similar way to the online game. Whilst the technology for achieving this is already with us, the number of players who like to use real bingo daubers is such that a total elimination of good old-fashioned ink and felt-tip is unlikely to take place for at least another few years.

15th April 2008