Bingo has been around for quite some time even though the origin is not known for sure. There are different variations of Bingo, but the basic goal of bingo is to get a winning combination. When you achieve a winning combination you yell “bingo.” The way bingo is played depends on the country.
UK bingo is also referred to as Housie. The typical UK bingo/housie ticket contains twenty-seven spaces and contains nine columns and three rows. Each of these rows contains five numbers and four blank spaces. Each Column contains one, two, or rarely 3 numbers. The first column consists of numbers from 1 to 9, the second column consists of numbers from 10 to 19, the third column consists of numbers from 20 to 29 and the pattern continues like this until the last column which goes from 80 to 90.
A caller will call out numbers that if you have them on your card you will either mark over it with a writing utensil or place a simple chip over it. The caller will often exchange prizes for winning tickets after they validate them. The means by which the caller will obtain the numbers can be by an electronic random number generator, drawing number labelled pieces from a bag, or other possibilities. The different winning combinations for UK bingo are line, two lines, and full house. You achieve a winning combination in line when you cover a horizontal line of five numbers on the ticket. You achieve a winning combination in two line when you cover any two lines on the same ticket. For full house you must cover all fifteen numbers on the bingo card. When a line game is over, the caller will often switch to a two line game or just go straight to a full house game.
In the UK’s National Bingo Game the only type of bingo played is full house. The record payout for the national bingo game was £950,000. If you receive the last number in your winning bingo sequence you must call out bingo before the caller continues and then leaves you with an invalid combination.
There is both online and offline Bingo. Bingo has been played for many years and it does not seem like it will be put down anytime soon.
By Tom Webb
Bingo is now played in a number of companies. As a regular online bingo player, I have seen that there is a wider range of prizes to encourage players of any level from beginners to experienced bingo players.