Bingo
When most people think of Bingo, they imagine a hall full of old people scratching off numbers with their fingers crossed hoping to win a small pot of gold to splash about on some new woolly jumpers, luxury slippers and splendid tea party snacks. Well that’s one way of looking at it anyway…
In fact Bingo has now grown so big that it is played by many young people as well as old in jazzed up Bingo halls and even online. Gone are the days of the old Church halls and social community gatherings proving most popular to find Bingo games.
So what exactly is Bingo?
Bingo has no upward limit of people and can be played by tens or even hundreds of players at a time. In the US and Canadian version of bingo a player is given a card/grid with 25 numbers on; usually the grid is 5 x 5 in size. A bingo presenter will pull numbered balls out of a bag or drum at random and call them out to the players. The first player to mark off 5 numbers in a row, whether horizontally vertically or diagonally wins the game and shouts out Bingo.
Bingo prizes are usually generous cash sums or precious items. Due to the size of some Bingo night organisers and their events, hundreds of people can play at once and thus the prizes that players can win are very attractive.
Bingo Variations
The non US version of bingo that is played in the UK, Australia and New Zealand is known as ‘Housey Housey’. The origins of this particular version are unknown, but the rules remain similar to the game played in the US and Canada.
A player receives a card with 27 spaces rather than 25. The grid is made up by 3 spaces high and 9 spaces wide. Each of the three rows contains five random numbers and four spaces with each column containing one, two or occasionally three numbers.
Column 1 contains numbers ranging from 1 to 9, Column 2 numbers 10 to 19, Column 3 numbers 20 to 29 and this carries on up until the ninth column which contains numbers 80 to 90.
Before the game begins the Bingo host will announce the prizes available and then call out ‘eyes down’ to let the players know he or she is about to start the game. Again numbers are picked in one of the three ways that the US version also uses, by using a random ball machine, a random number generator or cards picked from a bag.
There are three ways to win at the Housey Housey bingo game. You can get 5 horizontal numbers in a row, any 2 rows of numbers or a full house covering all fifteen numbers.
Obviously you will win a greater prize for a full house than for 2 rows of numbers. In official British Bingo clubs only the full house game rule applies.