New to online bingo?
The objective of any style of bingo is to complete the game pattern on your bingo card before any other player does. If you do, you have a bingo and you’ve won the prize. Sounds easy? Well it is!
When playing online bingo the cards are randomly selected for you. Most games give you 3 or 4 cards and if you're lucky you can play free bingo at many bingo sites. Other games let you take more.
During the bingo game the most important thing to you is to make the pattern and you only need the numbers that form the pattern to win the game. However patterns can vary in complexity but simple ones include horizontal, vertical or diagonal direction. There’s also a game called the blackout or "coverall" where you have to cover every square on the whole card.
There are two main types of bingo played around the world. In the USA 75-ball bingo is the most popular. There is a 5 by 5 card with the centre square usually marked as free. Here in the UK, parts of Europe, Australia and parts of South America the more popular version is a 90-ball game, marked on a 9 by 3 card. Speed Bingo is a variation played exactly the same, but numbers are simply called much quicker.
In 90-ball bingo, each card has three horizontal lines and nine columns. Each line contains five numbers with the first column containing numbers from 1-10, the second column containing 11-20, the third column containing 21-30, all the way through to the final column which contains numbers from 81-90.
90 ball bingo games are usually played in three stages: one line, two lines and Full House. In a "one line" game players need to mark a complete horizontal line across one card (i.e. matching 5 numbers). In a 'two lines' game you have to complete any two marked lines horizontally across one card (i.e. matching 10 numbers). Finally a "Full House" means all the numbers marked off on one card (all 15 numbers), as in a regular coverall game. The prizes usually differ at as the game progresses with the Full House always being the largest prize a player can win.
Bingo games have a caller or a display board for the bingo numbers. The numbers are announced quickly so you must pay careful attention to the numbers that are called and mark them quickly and accurately on your cards. Some online bingo games remove all the hassle from the game because they will automatically mark the numbers on your card for you!
The caller continues to call out numbers and play continues until one or more players claim bingo, at which time, the game stops immediately and the numbers are verified. If there's a winner announced, the prize is awarded to that lucky person. If there is more than one winner, they’ll split the prize evenly.
After this the player will get a new set of cards and a new pattern to complete so the fun start all over again!
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