A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there were many alien races and droids spread across wonderful and not-so-wonderful planets, populating the universe we all know and love. The various media from George Lucas’ brilliant mind has treated us to many miracles over the decades, and some of them became staples of the sci-fi genre.
Swords made of magnetically contained plasma? Check. Space wizards? Check. Huge slug-looking aliens? Check. One ridiculously annoying Gungan? Check. Bingo? Eeh, not so sure about that.
To be fair, the Star Wars mythos certainly doesn’t lack for games of chance. After all, any wretched hive of scum and villainy worth the name is bound to have some gambling going on. And while we can easily find real-life counterparts for many of the exotically titled games from the SW universe, it’s not so clear whether something akin to bingo shows up in any of the stories.
Still, we like a challenge, so we armed ourselves with extensive Star Wars knowledge (and a little help from Wookiepedia) and set out on an interplanetary journey to find bingo-like Star Wars games.
The Balance of the Force
Why would anyone look for bingo games in Star Wars, you might wonder? Well, there’s plenty of reasons why people might be interested. First of all, bingo has been experiencing a resurgence of sorts, especially among young people. While bingo’s traditionally strong ties to the UK remain, the game does have a big following in other countries as well.
Secondly, people just love anything Star Wars related. From T-shirts, collectables, video games, and movies, to Star Wars retouches of gambling games, we all love to see anything that features content from one of the biggest SF sagas of our time.
Star Wars Gambling
As we mentioned, gambling plays a pretty significant role in the Star Wars universe. There’s a bunch of games that feature more or less prominently in SW stories, including casino games, table games, and those that do not fall squarely in the gambling category. These include games we would describe as social, being more similar to chess or craps than slots or poker.
We come across one such game immediately in the first movie from the original trilogy, when Chewbacca plays dejarik, a chess-like hologram game with monsters on a board in the Millenium Falcon. That’s also when we found out that Chewie is a sore loser – something a lot of us can relate to.
Let’s take a look at the most popular Star Wars games and whether any of them can scratch that bingo itch.
An Elegant Game for a More Civilized Age
So, is there a bingo game in Star Wars, or anything at least slightly similar to it? Unfortunately, the short answer is no. This might seem odd – if there are so many games in Star Wars that correspond to those we play in our world, why would bingo be omitted? While there’s no official explanation, we can take an educated guess. The most probable reason is the unique gameplay and dynamic of bingo.
Bingo is not really a directly competitive game that pits players against each other. As such, most Star Wars writers might find it uninteresting as a vehicle for the story or even something to play out in the background. Bingo is a game of probability in which players try to predict randomly drawn numbers. This doesn’t offer much opportunity to play out a high-stakes scene, cantina shootout, or life-or-death bingo game.
Secondly, bingo doesn’t leave much room for a futuristic retouch. Sure, dice games appear pretty similar between Star Wars and real life, with just a few caveats added to the former. However, to clearly display that the story of SW occurs in a world much more technologically advanced than ours, the majority of games include holograms or similar tech showcasing this disparity.
Community, You’re My Only Hope
While a bingo Star Wars equivalent is woefully absent both in canon stories and the expanded non-canon Legends universe, don’t lose hope. One of the best things about Star Wars is its immense fan community, which churns out content and adaptations constantly.
Hence, you can easily find a lot of community-made bingo Star Wars games online. What’s more, most of that content is offered for free, from one fan to another.
These SW bingo games are pretty easy to find – a simple Google search will do – and we were genuinely impressed by how well-designed most of them were.
Exciting Star Wars Games to Check Out
In case you’re interested in great gambling games that do exist in the Star Wars universe and perhaps wish to re-create them in real life, these are definitely worth a look:
- Pazaak: Blackjack equivalent
- Dejarik: Space chess
- Chance cube: Dice
- Lugjack: Slots
- Sabaac: Poker