It's the eve of London's Online Bingo summit and I'm feeling a bit nostalgic. Has it really been more than a decade since Parlay developed the world's first interactive online bingo site? Is it true that we were instrumental in reinventing and reinvigorating the world's most popular game?

I was in the midst of preparing for Wednesday's Bingo Technology panel (it's the last session on the last day, so it must be important!) when the reality of it hit me like a ton of bricks - there is actually a two-day summit devoted entirely to online bingo! And hundreds of people think it's important enough to attend.

After years of being online gaming's ugly red-headed step-child, bingo has finally come into its own. We've come a long way from the days of static html bingo cards and a game client that took two hours to download.

The latest estimates are that the global online bingo market will be worth more than £1 billon by 2010. That's really big business. And if you're in the European bingo industry, you know that this bingo summit is really big business too. Over two days, we'll be analysing just about every facet of the game to figure out just what players want from their online bingo experience.

Most exciting is that we'll be looking beyond the UK to Italy, Spain and the rest of Europe. After all, bingo is the world's most popular game and there are still entire nations that haven't yet experienced the fun of it online. As barriers to entry continue to erode, the world is our oyster when it comes to harvesting online bingo players.

They say that some of the brightest minds in bingo are gathering at this summit, so it's sure to be intriguing. If only I could figure out how to jam ten years of bingo into one fifteen minute presentation. I'd better talk fast.

See you there!