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How to Play Bingo


Written by Alex Eliades, 17th Nov 2011

My Grandmother knows how to play bingo but she cannot use a mouse and her local bingo club has closed down. She doesn’t understand how using a small rodent would help her play bingo now her local Gala hall closed some years back. That kind of summarizes how the modern bingo player is not necessarily your Grandmother and how playing bingo has now changed with the advent of the Internet version.

If you know the classic hall game and you have never played bingo online you might be wandering how the likes of Paddy Power have managed to take the atmosphere to your computer screen. Since the whole bingo movement has been driven through a social scene that is the essence of what has been replicated and developed online.

Bingo Gameplay and Rules

It all works with the same rules as traditional 90, 80 or 75 ball bingo games and sometimes customized variations. Prior to a game starting there is a countdown that gives you a window to buy virtual tickets identical to those that you would find in the bingo hall. Then once the game commences numbers will be called out and also displayed on screen, and should your number come up your on screen tickets will be daubed automatically so there is no manual intervention and you can’t miss numbers. As more numbers are called out most bingo games will automatically rearrange your tickets to show those that have the most numbers daubed in a line and are likely to win. As soon as someone in the game gets 1 line an announcement will be made of the first winner, congratulations will be made in the chat and so on until someone eventually gets a full house and takes the jackpot.

The Social Side

Every successful online bingo operator offers a chat facility so that all bingo players in a game get the opportunity to talk with each other through instant messaging in real time. All games are hosted by chat moderators that introduce people to the game, congratulate winners and hold general conversations with the players. Online, games usually pan out much quicker than in the bingo hall and in addition to the chat this really does step up the pace and add to the excitement. When one game finishes there will be several other soon to start and you can buy your tickets and start again.

Play for Money

Ticket prices start at 1p and can usually range up to £0.25 and sometimes more, and also there are a maximum number of tickets that can be purchased for each game. Therefore if you make an initial deposit of £10, get a sign up bonus of £20 - £30 you are loaded with £30 - £40 to get started and with such low tickets prices you can play for many hours in several sittings. Consequently, bingo is considered soft gambling with a large number of low stake bets so you really get your money’s worth of enjoyment out of the game whether you win or not.