The Health Benefits of Bingo for Seniors

What comes to mind when you hear the words online games? For many people, gaming is a teenager’s favorite pastime.  While this might be true, online games target everyone.

Whether you’re 20 or 65, the Internet has games you can play to have fun and prolong your life. If you’re over 65 years old, bingo is one of the best games you can play for leisure.

What is Bingo?

Bingo is a game of chance played with cards numbered horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. To play, you need to buy a bingo card. Bingo comes in several versions:

• 90-ball bingo
• 80-ball bingo
• 75-ball bingo
• 30-ball bingo

When bingo is played online, it is easy to access and convenient. You can choose any of the bingo versions mentioned above. And you can play through your smartphone.

The best casino sites give you a bingo bonus as a welcome bonus. However, you need to deposit money and buy a virtual bingo game to get started. You can buy several bingo cards. After that, a human caller or the computer calls out five random numbers. If you have these numbers on your card, you win. Depending on the bingo type, your numbers must align vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. 

Line bingo, the most common version of the game, pays you if you line up five numbers in a row. You can also make money if you mark off two horizontal lines.

Another way to make money in bingo is to daub off the numbers in all four corners of your card. Also, if you can mark off all the numbers on your bingo card, it is called a full house—the biggest reward in the game.

Bingo is a game for people of all ages. However, it is particularly common among senior citizens. It is a great game for spending time with friends. According to health experts, bingo is also great for your health.

Here are some of the health benefits of playing bingo as a senior citizen:

1.    Reduced Risk of Dementia

Bingo helps increase blood flow to your brain. A healthy brain supports memory improvement, which reduces the risk of dementia and other mental illnesses.

According to a 2019 research about Alzheimer’s disease, you can lower your risk of dementia by adopting healthier lifestyle choices. The study recommends a healthy diet, regular exercises, and cognitive stimulation through activities like puzzles and bingo.

For clarity, dementia has several risky factors like genetics. You can fall victim to the disease even with a healthy lifestyle. However, you have a better chance of spending your later years without dementia if you stay involved socially, work out, and check your diet.

2.    Improve Cognitive Function

Cognitive skills help us process information to respond logically and quickly. As we get older, we can lose some cognitive skills like long-term memory, eyesight, or auditory processing.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University did a study to determine whether games can help older people improve their cognitive performance. They took a particular interest in bingo.

The study found that large bingo cards help seniors improve their thinking skills and alleviate some of the signs associated with dementia. The research also concluded that increased contrast in the living spaces of senior citizens could work greatly in improving their quality of life.

3.    Enhances Hand-Eye Coordination

As we age, we lose some important skills like eye-hand coordination. Sometimes these problems can worsen if you have a history of alcohol abuse, brain injury, or PTSD.

Doctors recommend social activities like bingo and working out to enhance hand-eye coordination. Swimming, walking, or yoga can improve your physical fitness and heart health. On the other hand, bingo improves your social skills and hand-eye coordination.

4.    Lowers Your Risk of Falls

Falls can break your bones or cause other complications.The worst part is that they become more and more common as we age. Luckily, when you engage in social games like bingo, you improve your balance, strengthen your knees, and enhance your eye-hand coordination. This gives you more control over your body, which makes it harder to fall.

Because bingo isn’t demanding on your body, it doesn’t expose you to some of the risks you would acquire by doing activities like weightlifting or playing sports. That being said, health experts recommend a combination of simple workouts with social activities like bingo.

5.    Can Lead to Quality Sleep

Loneliness, stiff joints, and bad memories can rob you of your ability to sleep well at night. However, there’s a simple solution for losing sleep due to inactivity. Play more games with friends.

Playing multi-player bingo can distract you from your loneliness or PTSD by invoking your feel-good hormones. It can also help regulate body temperature, one of the best ways to enhance your sleep.

For the best experience, play bingo after a short workout. The workout will activate your muscles and enhance your alertness. An alert brain makes bingo more enjoyable. This can increase your overall energy and better your sleep habits.

6.    Brightens Your Mood

Eighty percent of bingo players say the game makes them happy. In all fairness, bingo isn’t just a social game. It is a real-money event. You could win tens of thousands of dollars on your lucky day.

Some Internet casinos have bingo games worth millions of dollars. In 2015, a lucky Brit won $6.5 million from a bingo game she bought for pennies. Everyone would have a smile on their face if they won a million dollars today.

Now, you probably shouldn’t turn to bingo as an income source. It is a game of chance. Play bingo to have fun. Statistics show the game has a blended demographic of players.

The major bingo players are between 45 and 55 years old, with 75% of them being women. The percentage of male bingo players is growing thanks to a growing interest in younger males.

The game’s online community is also skyrocketing. Google no longer bans gambling apps on its app store, meaning people can easily download bingo apps.