The Basic Rules of Bingo

And how to win at bingo

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Bingo rules are an important part of the game theory and need to be learned by all players. It’s always advisable to check the rules governing bingo before you start playing the game whether playing in person at a bingo hall/other large commercial venue or online. The rules in the UK are usually a little different from the US version; most of the time UK bingo halls serve as a form of charity and players play for fun prizes only, although there are still some that offer cash prizes.

To start with a player needs to buy bingo tickets to play online bingo. These tickets are selected at random and printed with a range of numbers (variations of 75, 80 and 90 numbers). It’s not uncommon for manufacturers to produce cards with a series number (something counting in the region of 4,000 to 6,000), which means that the cards with the same series number will have the same number in the same places.

The game begins when the ‘caller’ (the equivalent to the human game show host) selects a number at random from a tombola and calls it out to the room. In bingo halls the numbers are called out according to specific bingo number calling rules, so much care and attention is needed. If the players have the numbers called out, then they can mark them off their cards (sometime they play more than one card), and so on. It’s very important to keep up with the pace the caller has set, as any missed numbers will result in reducing your chance of winning. In more modern situations, the bingo caller may call out randomly generated numbers or these can be replaced completely by a computerised screen.

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A winner is determined when one or several players shout out “bingo”, at which point the game stops and the numbers are verified. Once this has been carried out and the winner confirmed, a new game can start. Very often a player will maximise their chances and play different cards simultaneously. Most people know how to play bingo so it's pretty easy, you just some bingo luck.

In the UK the traditional bingo ticket is a 3x9 grid with numbers from 1 to 90 printed on it. Each of the 3 rows has 5 numbered squares and 4 empty ones. The numbers are placed according to the columns, for instance the 1st column may contain numbers from 1 to 10, the 2nd 11 to 20, and so on until the 9th column with numbers from 81 to 90. Depending on the bingo rules, the patterns in the game are 1 row in the first round, rows in the second and a full house on the third round.

In the US the bingo card is usually a card with a printed 5x5 grid on it, of which the 5 columns on the card correspond to 5 letters of the name of the game “B-I-N-G-O”. With 24 random numbers per card, numbered from 1-75 with the centre of the card being an empty space.

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There are different ways of winning, depending on the particular bingo hall or online casino, such as with a vertical, horizontal or diagonal line, a full house, or any symbol, letter or digit. So you could be a winner by either being the first to get a line going horizontally across the card, the first to get a full house (cover all the numbers on the card) or by being the first person to cover all the numbers on two lines.

Alternatively, you could be a winner with a progressive bingo jackpot. Progressive games are growing bigger and more lucrative – prizes can be tens of thousands of pounds and very occasionally even a million pounds! As the name suggests, the jackpots increase in size with game until somebody wins – rather like a national lottery scheme when it has a rollover. A progressive jackpot is usually a “full house” or “coverall” type, whereby the winner needs to cover all the numbers in say, less than 50 numbers called. However, this is only a general rule of thumb and a smaller prize may be awarded if a player gets a full house in more than 50 numbers.