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Series 12: 8. Eyes Down! The Story of Bingo
It is one of Britain's most popular leisure pursuits, but high street bingo came about almost by accident as the result of a loophole in an obscure piece of gambling legislation. Almost overnight, in January 1961 what had been a quiet parlour game or occasional seaside flutter was turned into a brash multimillion-pound business. \n\nAs Timeshift affectionately recalls in this documentary, soon nearly a quarter of the population were playing and becoming fluent in the rhyming slang of 'bingo lingo' - from 'Legs Eleven' to 'Clickety Click, Sixty Six'. This explosion of interest quickly led to a moral panic about the dangers of easy prize money, but bingo was defiantly here to stay - and not just as the preserve of older women, as today's mega-halls full of hen night parties show.
Source: BBC 4
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