How to Play Online Bingo

How to Play Online Bingo

Online bingo has grown in popularity over the past few years and more people are starting to become intrigued by this sociable game. If you are looking for advice on how to play online bingo, you will be pleased to hear that bingo is a simply game to play with rules that are quick and easy to learn.

The game of bingo uses a numbered ticket with the ultimate aim to mark off all your numbers and win the jackpot prize. One great aspect of online bingo is that it is such a friendly game and there is always someone available to help you in the bingo rooms if you do get stuck.

If you are looking for advice on how to play online bingo, here are some guidelines to help you get started with this exciting, fun and sociable game.

How to register at a bingo site

The first step in playing online bingo is to decide where to play and then register an account. There are many criteria when it comes to choosing a site, from the types of games available, the cost of tickets and size of jackpots, to the bonuses on offer and the community aspect.

Once you have picked a bingo site, you need to register an account. To do this you will need to choose a username and enter your email address – all the instructions on the screen will explain what to do to get started. Once you are registered, it is time to start playing!

How to buy online bingo tickets

Before you can enter a game of bingo, you need to buy a ticket to the game. New players are often given free bingo tickets (or bingo cards) and many games online are free to play. However the games with the larger jackpots are normally paid-for. You can often buy tickets in advance for games and others can be bought moments before the game starts.

How your ticket looks will depend on the type of bingo game you are playing, such as 90 ball or 75 ball bingo. In general, a bingo ticket consists of lines of numbers and some blank squares (find out more about bingo types in our articles about 90 ball and 75 ball bingo).

The game will require you to either mark off all your numbers – a ‘coverall’ – a certain pattern of numbers or lines of numbers. When you buy you bingo tickets you can normally buy as many as you like, up to a maximum of 96.

How to play bingo online

Once you have bought your ticket, the time left before the start of your game will be shown ticking down on the screen. Once the game starts, all the information will be displayed such as the number of payers in the game, the available prizes and the jackpot prize.

The numbers are called one by one. You can keep track of the numbers as they are displayed clearly on the screen with the last 5 numbers visible.

You can dab the numbers off on your card with a click of your mouse as they are called out. However, don’t worry about missing any numbers because when you play online bingo there is ‘auto-dab’ function, which dabs the numbers automatically, so you will never miss out on a win!

Some people call this ‘daubing’ – so if you see the word ‘daubing’ mentioned, it is exactly the same thing as ‘dabbing’ in the bingo world.

Online bingo settings

When learning how to play online bingo, you will discover options for different settings, which can altered during your game. The ‘auto-dab’ feature is one of these settings and if you select this, your card will be marked for you automatically. Remember even if you don’t select this, you will never miss out on a win when playing online bingo, as the system will sense automatically if you have won a prize.

Other settings in online bingo can vary depending on the website but may include ‘Show 3TG’, which will highlight your numbers when you only have 3 left to dab on your bingo ticket.

If you are playing a number of different bingo tickets at the same time, you can arrange them on your screen to show the ticket with the fewest numbers remaining at the top of the screen.

How to win at online bingo

How to win a game of online bingo depends on what type of bingo you’re playing. If you manage to mark off all 15 numbers on a 90 ball bingo card, you have won the full house. But if another player gets there before you, you can often still win a prize if you have still managed to get all the numbers on 1 line or 2 lines of your card.

In contrast, 75 ball bingo follows patterns instead of lines, so you will need to mark off the numbers to create pattern on the card to win the game. The pattern required can be a square or another shape or it might be a ‘coverall’, which means all of the numbers on the card. These 75 ball games normally only have one winner as there are no lines to award other prizes.

In online bingo, when someone has won a prize or won the jackpot, the winner’s name will appear on the screen along with their prize amount.

The social side of online bingo

Of course, when playing online bingo it is not all about the numbers, as much of the entertainment comes from the social aspect. The social side of bingo is just as important when playing online as it is playing in the bingo halls. In fact, online bingo sites encourage lots of interaction by having chat rooms open alongside the bingo games.

There are also ‘Chat Hosts’ which are staff sitting in the chat room ready to deal with any queries and keep up the fun spirit of the bingo game. The Chat Hosts will often hold chat games, which are fun side games, such as quizzes, that give you the chance to win extra prizes, which might be bonus cash or free bingo tickets.

If you are not sure of some aspect of how to play online bingo, you can also ask the Chat Host for advice.

Although fun and important to many, the social side of online bingo is not mandatory and you might prefer to focus on the numbers being called, especially at first. The caller seems to call the balls very quickly and keeping on top of the game might leave you with no time to chat as a newbie just getting to grips with the game.

The great thing about online bingo is that you can play the game exactly how you want – whether that is chatty and social or quietly focused on the numbers.

Online bingo payouts and jackpots

Normally the jackpot in an online bingo game is determined by the cost of the tickets. The higher jackpot games will cost more to enter.

Sometimes the jackpots can be fixed, so you know exactly how much money makes up the prize pool. Other times the jackpot will be determined by the number of people who buy tickets and of course their price.

Other bingo games can have a progressive jackpot, which means the jackpot prize keeps growing the longer the gaming session continues. Eventually someone will win the jackpot when they ‘bingo’ within a certain number of calls.

As you can see, playing bingo is really easy and it is so simple to learn. If you have any questions about how to play online bingo, the Chat Host is there to help you out. To find out more about how to play the individual bingo varieties, check out our other articles about 90 ball and 75 ball bingo.