A final little excursion into the weird and wonderful world of random number generation in connection with bingo. Question: Would you go on a Bingo game online or at a Bingo Hall if you walked under a ladder? Would you have bad luck that evening? What about if a black cat crossed your path? Do you think the good and bad luck would cancel each other out? I find it interesting where people believe that superstition and luck cross over to interfere and manipulate chance and the (apparently) random number generation of Bingo. By you having good luck, then you must be reducing the odds of other people winning (or at the very least reducing their winnings). On the other hand, if you're in the middle of a run of bad luck, and you told all your friends, would they flock to your Bingo Hall or online Bingo site because if you were unlucky, then that will increase their chances of a win.

Most people would probably say no, but then why is it that so many people have their lucky daubers, charms, clothes, places and rituals for Bingo? Horoscopes, particularly in daily Newspapers seem to be avidly read by most people, but few if any will actually not go to Bingo or log on, just because you star sign says you're going to luck-out today!

I was looking at chat room banter and I came across these amusing comments:

"I know my lucky numbers don't lie between 1 and 90!"
"I won £10 the 1st ever week the lottery started, i had 5 numbers and needed 1 more, and randomly picked 33. Which indeed was lucky then and still is!"
"My lucky number is 4 always has been. picked it when i was 5yrs. old at school because i love animals and they have four legs."

"Burning the number (on paper cards) helps it to come out the next game" (presumably this was with a cigarette when you could smoke indoors?

There are even specific Bingo horoscope prediction sites (many as part of an online Bingo company's pages) where you are told what your lucky numbers are!

Finally, I know someone who habitually recorded all the numbers that were called during a game, and also during the whole of an evening's Bingo online. They were convinced that the randomness would work in their favour if they worked out which numbers hadn't been called as often as they statistically should have come up. Therefore those numbers were "overdue" to appear, and cards with those numbers on it were more likely to have wins. I tried this once at poker. Of course provided the cards are properly shuffled, the chance of any single card being dealt to me was the same as any other!

If anyone comes up with a fool-proof way to bend the odds in their favour at Bingo, please contact me!