Al Gore Buzzword Bingo

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the most popular educational establishments among all the gambling world not only because of the fame of the MIT Blackjack team, but also due to the event that happened back in 1996 and had to do with the game of Bingo. Read all about the story of the Al Gore Buzzword Bingo!

In 1996, Al Gore was invited as the Commencement speaker by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before 1980's the speaker at the MIT was its President, however due to the fact that the speakers have become more and more impressive each year, it was decided to invite one of the most powerful and impressive personage they were going to host would be the Vice President of the United States, Al Gore. Thus, the hackers of the MIT decided to welcome him with one of the most impressive hacks, in the long tradition of the Commencement hacks and created the Al Gore Buzzword Bingo.

The initial idea was to drop a banner saying "The MIT Assassins' Guild welcomes President Gore", however the banner was immediately vetoed by the Couth Committee because of two reasons.The first one was in the fact that the security of the Vice President would take down the whole Institute looking for the assassination spot. The other was the risk of insulting the members of the usually calm Assassins' Guild that did not seem a nice idea.

The next idea came with the image of the Al Gore that at that time already had a reputation for using buzzwords, and for creating the Internet, of course. So, the next step was in reminding the Vice President that he was at the MIT, the place where they know about technologies a lot more than anywhere else at least in the US. They created the Al Gore Buzzword Bingo spreading the boards with buzzwords instead of numbers and instructions on every seat in Killian before Commencement. The players of the Al Gore Buzzword Bingo were to mark all the words on the boards if they were noticed in the speech and in case someone would complete the line in any direction would raise the card backwards and show it to the Vice President. The back of the Buzzword Bingo cards contained a sign saying "Buzzword Bingo".

Nevertheless, Al Gore knew where he was going, so during his speech he tried to use no buzzwords at all. According to the MIT information, nobody won at that time. However, the Vice President did make everybody laugh when one of the Architecture majors burst out laughing on the inside joke, Al Gore asked them "Did I say a buzzword?"  

They are saying that when the President Clinton was invited with the same purpose, the same technique was used. This time the Buzzword Bingo was won by practically all)