How to Play Bingo

1. Get your cards. In a hall you buy paper cards or an electronic unit before the session; online you choose how many cards to play and the stake for each.
2. Listen for the pattern. Before each game the caller or the screen names the shape that wins it, such as one line, two lines or a full card.
3. Mark the numbers called. Each ball drawn is read out or shown, and you mark it on any card that carries it. A marker pen used for this is a dauber; online the game can mark for you.
4. Claim a win. When a card completes the pattern, you call out in a hall, and your card is checked against the numbers drawn. Online the win is detected and paid on its own.
5. Play the next prize or the next game. Some games continue after a first win toward a larger shape; others end and a new game starts with a new pattern.

The two classic formats each have a page of their own with the full card and its prizes. The two shorter formats are described in full below.

80-ball bingo sits between the American and British games. Its card is a square of four rows and four columns with 16 numbers and no free space. Each column draws from its own range, 1–20, 21–40, 41–60, 61–80, and the columns are often printed in four colors so a called number can be found at a glance.

A game usually offers three prizes: a line, which can run across, down or corner to corner for 10 possible lines; the four corners; and the full house. On one card the full house takes 76.24 calls on average, and the 80-ball odds give the chance of each prize by call.

30-ball bingo is the shortest format there is. The card is a square of three rows and three columns, 9 numbers with columns of 1–10, 11–20, 21–30, and the only prize is the full card. Because the drum holds just 30 balls, every card is complete by the time the last one is called, and a card on its own usually fills only in the closing calls.

With many cards in play someone finishes far earlier, and several cards often complete together, so prizes are shared more often than in any other format. The game suits people who want many short rounds rather than a long one.

In a hall the numbers come from a ball machine and are read out by a caller, who often adds a traditional nickname before the number. The calls for all 90 numbers, along with a glossary of hall and screen terms, are listed on the bingo calls page. Every ball is equally likely, and the balls are drawn until someone claims. When a claim is made, the card is checked against the balls drawn so far, and if two or more cards finish on the same call the prize is shared between them.

Online, a random number generator takes the place of the ball machine, and the game marks every card and spots every win on its own, so a number cannot be missed. In video bingo there is nothing to claim at all: the draw runs to its end and the table on the screen settles every card.