Bingo FAQ

  1.  History Of Bingo
  2. Introduction to Bingo
  3. Bingo Legality
  4. Live Bingo
  5. Online Bingo

History Of Bingo

We all know plenty of things about the bingo game, but have you ever wondered when did this amazing game appear? Today we are going to present you a brief history of Bingo game.

It all started in Italy with a lottery game named “Il Giocco del Lotto d`Italia” back in 1530. Later on, at the end of eighteenth century, the game has taken over Europe. In France it developed by adding different features like cards and tokens. In Germany, the game was used for teaching purposes, because it was a fun way for kids to learn to recognize numbers, spelling and multiplication table.

Later on, in 1920 Hugh J. Ward brought the game at a carnival in Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania where he claimed the copyright for the Bingo name, and wrote a Rule book.

In 1929, at a carnival near Atlanta, the toy merchandiser Edwin Lowe had an idea. He made a game called Beano. The game used the rules Ward wrote, cardboard sheets, rubber stamp and dried beans. The whole point of the game was to cover the numbers that were getting called with a dried bean. The game was a success so he took the game back with him in New York.

What is the history of bingo?

In New York he presented the game to his friends. Everybody loved the Beano game, so much that soon he was organizing Beano events. The thing about the game is, it was really addictive. Ed had to chase people out of the place every time he organized an event. When he was telling them “ this is the last game of the night” it seemed that nobody was listening.

In one of the sessions he organized there was a woman that was getting more and more excited as the numbers were called. As soon as the last number was called, she jumped on her feet and said “b-b-bingo”. Then Lowe thought that Bingo would be a much better name than Beano for the game.

He didn’t have a problem in naming the game that way, even though Ward had claimed copyright on the name in 1920. The word can be traced back in Britain since 1770, which made Ward`s claim invalid.

The games that were produced by Lowe had two versions: 12 card sets at 1$ and the second version 24 card sets at 2$.

The bingo game was a success so Ed had many competitors soon, he requested that the pay 1$ per year to conduct the games and use the name Bingo.

Where did bingo originate?

The game of bingo, the modern day bingo, has a very long heritage of more than 500 years and suffered significant changes from its original form.

As we all know, bingo originated from lottery games and it was first introduced in Italy around 1530 by the Italian nation lottery “Lo Giuoco del Lotto d’Italia” and it is still held until today, every Saturday in some Italian cities.

The second country to adopt bingo game was France, in the late 1770’s there were some reports of a game very similar to what we know as bingo. It was called “Le Lotto“. The card used in the game had three horizontal rows and nine verticals with random numbers from 1 to 10, 11 to 20 and so on up to 90 in every row and four blank spaces. A caller would pick the numbers from a bag and read the number out loud. The first player who manages to cover a horizontal line would be declared as the winner.

Bingo spread very easy and very fast across Europe, reaching countries like the United Kingdom, still in the eighteenth century and Germany in the 1800’s as an educational game for children.

In the United States, Bingo was first introduced as “Beano” in 1929 at a festival in Atlanta, Georgia. Soon after, that New Yorkers took interest in it. Edwin Lowe, a toy salesman, also from New York changed the name into Bingo after hearing a woman yelling “B-B-B-Bingo”, overwhelmed by her win.

Lowe revolutionized the bingo game after he hired a Columbia University mathematics teacher, by the name of Carl Leffler, to produce 6,000 new cards without any repeating number groups.

So, by the end of 1930s, around 100 million dollars were played every week in North America, on bingo games alone.

The term “bingo” was first heard in the United Kingdom in the 1930s and gained its biggest popularity in the mid-’60s, and is still with us today.

Even so the Bingo played today in England it is not the same as the Bingo played in the US, there are 90 ball bingo and 75 ball bingo which are a bit different in tickets format and calling.

Bingo has changed a lot in many ways but the essence is the same, a lottery game that requires attention and a ton of luck, a game that keeps its players plugged in from the very beginning until the hearing of the Bingo word.

 

Introduction to Bingo

How bingo works

According to stats published by some Bingo sites, records show that the game is even played for fun between children in kindergartens, just for the fun of the it though!

The idea of the game is very simple, it doesn’t require any particular strategic knowledge of any kind, just attention and, of course, luck, as any other lottery game. Bingo is not all about the money as the majority of other gambling games, bingo is also about enjoying yourself, meeting new people and having a good time. This one of the main reasons it’s very popular among old people, but lately bingo tends to have more and more appeal to younger generations.

If you decide to play bingo at your local bingo hall or virtual bingo, you need to know that the rules of the game may vary depending your location. The most popular type of bingo in  the United Kingdom and across Europe is “90 Ball Bingo”. The ticket here has 3 rows and 9 columns, with random numbers and 4 random blank spots on each row and a total of 15 numbers on each ticket. Players have to mark the numbers drawn, and the first player that manages to fill a specific pattern like a full line, two lines or even a full house is declared as the winner.

But if you live in the United States, you will most likely find another type of bingo, called
“75 Ball Bingo” which is similar in many ways to the one in Britain. This time the ticket has 5 rows and 5 columns, a total of 25 numbers on each card. As the name suggests, this game supports a total of 75 numbers, instead of 90 numbers, so 3 cards for each game session. The patterns to fill in order to win on 75 ball bingo differs from F shape, O shape, E shape to vertical and horizontal lines, to the hardest full card. It must be said that the regular US card has a black-free spot market usually, with a star in the middle of the card.

No matter where you decide to play bingo, or how you decide to play it, at your local hall, on the slot machines at the pub, or even on your tablet, bingo is a great and easy opportunity to make some extra money and relax.

How to win in bingo?

Truth be said, there is no magic formula to win a bingo game, not even a mathematical one and there is no strategy known, by any game enthusiasts, or even the top bingo players.

When it comes to bingo the odds of winning are the same for every player, but of course with the exception of the players who got more tickets. For example: if there are, let’s say 200 cards in play, and you got 5 cards, your chance to win 2.5 percent or 5 in 200. Basically the more tickets you buy, the better are your chances of winning, so it can be said that this is the golden rule of bingo. Be above the average bingo player regarding the number of card you have.Of course, there some tips which everybody should consider before heading to a bingo hall or open the browser for a session of online bingo.

In order not to break the bank and also have a good time, because the game of bingo is also about enjoying yourself and relaxing, you should set a budget for yourself. This will help you keep track of the money you spent on cards, and the number of cards you buy for each game. Also, choose your cards carefully. If you can, try to pick the tickets with completely different numbers.

No two cards are the same, but in order to maximize your chances, pick those that don’t duplicate numbers that you already have on one card. Keep away from the crowded halls! The prizes may not be as high, as those in the crowded ones but, the less crowded the hall is, the more chances you have. After all, a win is a win, no matter what!

Another good advice is to stay sharp and pay attention thru all the game length, because if you don’t hear the number and the hall has no TVs to display the number, it might be a lost one for you.If you choose to play bingo online in front of the computer, or from your tablet or smartphone, just make sure the site is legit before you put your credit card serial number or other personal information there. In this case, google is a great help. The last but definitely not least tip is to keep a positive attitude. It may give you a good energy and also bring the luck on your side.

 

Bingo Legality

Can you trust bingo sites?

We pride ourselves in offering our visitors only the best references and reviews for the bingo rooms we promote on our site. With the tremendously fast developments of the world wide web over the years, it’s important for you to know that sometimes this virtual environment is not always a ‘safe place’ in terms of browsing and choosing the right site for you to play on. In order to avoid unpleasant surprises, we are constantly analyzing the online bingo market, and therefore, are able to offer you the best, safest and most accredited bingo rooms.

All the websites we promote on Bingo.org are very safe, and under no circumstances will they try to get your personal information and use it for commercial purposes. Most of the websites we are working with already have great reviews from players and therefore, hold a good reputation. This is one of the reasons why they invest a considerable amount of resources into offer a safe platforms for players and affiliates alike. One more thing you should know, is that any good bingo site will instantly encrypt your personal info once you introduce it, so that means that no one will ever read it. The same system is applied with your payment methods. If you are playing bingo on our offered bingo rooms, then you can rest assured that your money is as safe as your personal info.

This is a very delicate subject for every bingo site, and it is quite obvious why. If you own or market any top bingo brand in the industry, you would never want to tarnish your reputation, by having your player’s information leaked or hacked into. More than that, you want to grow your referral market business and increase the return on investment as much as possible and player’s security is paramount for your business’ success.

If you’re asking yourself whether the websites are fixed or rigged, we can honestly say that all the bingo rooms on our site have been thoroughly reviewed, most of all, they are using advanced software that prevent any kind of fixes in any of their offered games. As the random number generators (RNG) cannot be tricked, only the fair players get to win on our promoted bingo rooms!

We do however recommend that in order to prevent any kind of hacking attempts, you should make sure that your browser’s cookies and history are deleted from time and most of all, make sure that your antivirus and firewall protection software are up to date.  From this point on, your only job is to have fun with your friends, and play the best online bingo possible. Playing online bingo is a great way of spending your spare time, but it’s even greater if you play safe bingo!

Our final considerations are that nearly all bingo sites found online are considered to be safe and therefore, they offer a perfectly secure platform to play on.

Are bingo halls rigged?

Gambling halls were always thought to be surrounded by some shady scammers. Since the times, when gambling was nothing more than a street stall performers, some people have seen gambling as a way of fooling others and profiting from people’s misery. Those people who believe that any type of game that involve losing or earning money is simply paying the crook behind this.

In bingo games, there were some voices over the years that blamed the house for fixing games in favor of some people or the caller for ditching the balls into someone’s favor.

If you wonder if it is possible, that some bingo hall may be rigged, the truth is difficult to confirm. However, over the years there have been a number of notorious bingo game wins that suggest that there could have been some fixed draws. There were instances when the house could have done some under the table tricks in order to extract some specific balls, and the method was a very simple one. In fact, just by adding some additional weight to the balls, certain numbers can be easily drawn. While the rigged ball is in the air, in the rotating cage it is most likely to be extracted, or not to be extracted, by the machine, depending on its purpose.

Also, the callers can have their own scams, like ditching the extracted ball, pick up another ball and calling it, of course without been seeing by anyone, the old, simple magic trick, and, let’s not forget bribes, a caller can be bribed to validate a ticket without actually having a bingo pattern on it.

There are many ways of fooling the players, the average people in a bingo hall, but the real question is: WHY?

There is no rational reason for doing any sort of tricks. Not at all! Because the bingo hall always gets paid, regardless of the winner. As long as they sell tickets and cover their expenses and increase their profits, so, they may encourage you to buy more tickets, and also have more odds of winning!

Nowadays it is highly unlikely to find any rigged bingo hall, simply because they have nothing to gain from a rigged bingo matches, since the introduction of online bingo, more and more people have moved to playing this game online and therefore, if any bingo hall wants to keep their few remaining customers and also their reputation then it would not be wise for a bingo hall to resort to rigging games and hence cheating their players. In the end, bingo is truly a fun game and not one where one would do anything possible to earn fun based cash winnings.

Bingo is the type of game that should bring people together, bingo is played at charity events to raise money for good causes.

 

Live Bingo

How do Bingo Slots Work?

Bingo slots are used in casinos, public pubs, and also online. Bingo players enjoy their favorite game for fun and also to make some quick cash, through some lucky wins.

Slots in casinos and bingo halls, usually have three or four buttons, and in some cases they got even touchscreen controls, depending on the machine. These bingo slot machines are very easy to use and usually all you have to do is to press the ‘Play’ button to start gambling, having fun and maybe win significant amounts of cash in a few minutes.

Older machines had, in addition, a lever, but nowadays the game play is way more comfortable. In the past, those machines were also purely mechanical, and the chances of breaking down were substantially higher, in comparison with the newer tech models.

Today more and more gamblers prefer to play bingo at slot machines, because they play individually, not with the rest of the players, as in the case of classic bingo, while find themselves more comfortable this way. Also, the slot machines are safer, due to the algorithms that these machines work with.

The algorithms are based on a program that generates random numbers almost each time, so it just picks up the numbers totally by chance, thus the possibility the balls being weighted, or the hall being rigged is null. Even when nobody plays at the machine, the program is still on, in order to not display on the screen the last pairs of numbers, so the players will not find out what the next pairs are, and not figure out the way that the program works.

From time to time, these machines have to be verified by the licensed companies, in order to avoid errors and to give a fair match to loyal customers.

In some countries, bingo slot machines are illegal. So if you are not an adult and you want to taste this part of bingo, you can play online, but you need to know that you will not gain any money if you are underage (18). However, the game is mainly about fun, and it’s not always all about the money.

Bingo slot machines seem to be a great way to play a quick game session without breaking the bank, but people must pay attention and be careful with any type of slots, since one should always keep in mind that there is the possibility of becoming addicted to gambling.

How bingo halls make money?

Every time you go to a bingo hall, you either leave with a few hundred dollars in your pocket, or somebody else does. So, we’ve been wondering how do the bingo halls make profit, since many offer big cash prizes?

Don’t worry about looking for the answer to this question, we have done all the research for you and we are going to explain this is the most simple way possible;

First of all, you need to know that the bingo game is regulated by the government just like the national lottery, which means there are laws that regulate bingo halls: like for example, only a limited amount of money can be spent by a person. Also, in the United States, every bingo session need to be held on behalf of a charity, which means some of the profit will go to the cause. However, it is not uncommon for charities to actually end up without money from the events, since the game items can cost a lot, and the prizes that are given away are pretty high, therefore not enough return on investment is made.

Winning in a bingo game session depends entirely on luck and it very much depends on how many players have the possibility of winning the game. People pay their entry and then buy tickets. Depending on how many players are in the room, and how much they are willing to spend, a bingo night can end with a nice profit or really bad for the hall.

When asked what keeps his business alive, a bingo parlor owner told us that the secret is to keep the community together. If they enjoy the company and the bingo hall’s atmosphere, they will be coming more often. “Most of our regular customers come in couples or groups, it is not usual to see a person coming to play bingo alone, so we try to make attractive promotions for those who bring their friends. Last month we had an offer that our customers enjoyed and brought us a pretty nice profit for us: if there were 4 or more people at a table we would give them free snacks and drinks until the session was over.”

The success of a bingo hall depends very much on where it is located. Some states are better than others, and some people play bingo more than others.

So the answer to the question is: YES, the bingo game has many variables for players but for owners as well. Although traditional Bingo halls have come under fire due to the ever increasing number of online bingo rooms and ventures, such halls, are still very much in the business and do make considerable profits at the.

 

Online Bingo

What is online bingo?

Online bingo is a relatively new type of bingo game that can be traced back to 1996. Some people describe it as a lottery that is played as a game. The industry has developed a lot in the past few years, gaining huge popularity among the traditional bingo players.  Unlike the real live bingo, where the halls use the drawn balls-type game to decide the winners, the online bingo games use random number generators to decide the winners. While in bingo halls chat is seemingly forbidden between players while the bingo game is taking place, in bingo halls the chat is encouraged, bingo sites considering that a strong community is what keeps players together.  In the chat people usually congratulate the winners and the new players ask frequent questions.

Some online bingo games can be played directly on the site, and many sites offer you the possibility to download an app, in order to play the game. Recently, more and more bingo sites started developing a mobile app, so people can play bingo directly on their smartphone. Most sites require the player to have an e-wallet account where he can withdraw his earnings.

Even though most of people consider online bingo, gambling, it is not considered gambling by the law, because each player gets a different set of random numbers, and gives everyone an equal chance to win. That being said, the bingo game is able to sidestep many of the laws that ban online gambling. Anyhow, the law that states that only adults can play online bingo stands. So no minor, in under any circumstances can play online bingo.

There are only four main bingo types that are played around the world. Anyhow, each website personalizes their games, making them more attractive to players. First type is the classical 75-ball type, which is very popular in North America. In Europe and Australia, there is the 90-ball type that is mostly played, but also the 30-ball game which is known as quick bingo as well. The fourth type is 80-ball type which is mainly a hybrid between the 90-ball type and the 75-ball type.

The advantages of online bingo are that when a player makes an account there are some bonuses they get, and at each deposit the player can get more money than they initially invested. So basically, they get to play more bingo for the same amount of money. Don’t underestimate the fact of having the opportunity to make new friends across the world, while playing online bingo on the many bingo rooms, this site offers!

How do online bingo sites work?

The smartphone and mobile devices era has begun, internet, has never been the same, and that’s one of the main reasons why a bigger amount of players have migrated to online bingo. Opening the browser for a new session of bingo seems to be a more viable option nowadays, rather than searching for a nearby bingo hall, and actually going there.

In order play, you first need to understand the principle behind online bingo, and since we all know something about real bingo, let’s get started! Instead of the rotating cage, the numbers are chosen using a “random number generator” which is a computer software designed to pick (from a set of numbers) randomly numbers. So the numbers are picked totally by chance, without any doubt of cheating from the caller or the balls being weighted.

Online bingo rooms are regulated and inspected before they are launched online, and periodically, to adhere to all laws and regulations of the state or country they operate in, and only accept players from regions where online gambling is completely legal, in order to obtain a gambling license. For example, the majority of United Kingdom’s bingo sites usually have a Gibraltar gambling license and do not accept players from United States.

Also, the customer’s personal information and banking details are kept safe, encrypted within the site database, strictly regulated by the consumer protection law. Security is top priority for online bingo sites. That is why they use the latest technologies with regards to in server databases and web development.

Bingo sites usually offer large amount of games, and most of the bingo rooms focus on this large variety, while they try to please the gaming tastes, of most of their players, so it’s almost impossible not to find a style of game that suits you.

Online bingo rooms attract new players with first deposit bonuses and various promotions and jackpots. By offering bonuses at sign up and the first deposit, the player wins even before he actually begins to play, and he has even more reasons to invite or refer his friends to join him online.

Bingo sites also implement loyalty schemes for the oldest players on their sites, in order to reward the most active players and encourage all the other players to reach a higher level, also called senior user, power user, silver, gold or platinum user, depending on the bingo room. Furthermore, bingo sites are extremely user-friendly and come very handy to anybody who wants to enjoy the thrill of bingo from the comfort of his own sofa!

How to play bingo online?

The online bingo community has been growing in the past few years since it is a lot easier to play it from your computer or mobile device. If you are wondering how to join this massive online community we thought that you might want to read some information about how to get this started. So here are a few tips:

Now, all that`s left is to pick a one of the best bingo room and enjoy the game! And don`t forget to make friends. Playing bingo is fun, but playing bingo with friends is even better!