In the ever widening avenue that leads from and to online bingo games, you will stumble upon familiar bonus offers and chatty patrons, progressive jackpots and tiny wagers, and the glimmering streetlamps of opportunity or failure.

My experience in the online bingo world has left me more eager than I was when I began, and in no better or worse a financial state than I would have been had I not started.

I tip toed into online bingo games like a shoeless fire-fighter, but once through the door I found that the carpet wasn’t burnt, and that the surroundings weren’t a threat to me.

I trusted to luck… I paid myself in and did so wholeheartedly, with the knowledge that I wanted to play bingo and that while doing so I wanted to win.

I bought four cards. I had decided (in my bingo hall youth) that victory would come with a dent to my wallet but, to the pleasure of my still full virtual pocket, I found myself the recipient of a welcome bonus...

This little gesture was a turn up for the books. I was given my sign-up fee back to me in credit – it felt like I’d been handed a packet of smokes before I’d paid for them, I was off and running.

I chose a busy room; the one bustling with the competition. Having played bingo before, but only in the outside world, I knew what to expect and I didn’t. I ‘sat down’ and, licking my lips like a rambunctious zebra, I awaited the automated bingo caller’s draw...

Some time has passed. I’m sitting in my cushion backed chair and scratching my head in realisation of what went wrong. If I had been given any advice before, while heading toward my first online bingo games experience, it would have been this: “Find a room with fewer players in it you Wally!”

I resolved to try again. I had been young for a brief time but now I had matured, I had an awareness of this hall that even the cleaner didn’t have (of course the hall was virtual and there is no cleaner, but never the less…);I slipped into a smaller room where their was less competition for my envisioned victory. I was playing 90 ball bingo and we were all in for a long session but that suited me just fine, the random number generator began to churn and the game was in play...

So I’d lost again, what did it matter? This time I was close and I’d looked victory in the eye. My first experience of online bingo games is neither a cautionary tale nor an ill-grounded boast. I played, I lost – but only my free credit – and I’ll be back. After all, nobody ever wins the lottery the first time either right?