Bingo Strategy
Bingo leaves very little to decide. The numbers are drawn at random, every card has the same chance as every other, and nothing about the way a card is chosen or marked changes which balls come out. What remains are two decisions: in a room game, how many of the cards in play are yours; in video bingo, whether a ball offered after the draw is worth its price.
This guide works through both with exact figures, then sets out the claims that circulate about bingo and why none of them holds. The number of calls each prize takes, and why prizes are so often shared, are set out on the bingo odds page.
In a Room, Your Cards Are the Only Lever
Every card in a room game is dealt from the same numbers under the same rules, so by symmetry no card can be better than another. Your expected share of the prize money is therefore your share of the cards: ten cards out of 100 take 10.0% of it over time, and twenty-five out of 100 take 25.0%.
The rule: With k of the N cards in play, your expected share of the prize is exactly k/N, shared prizes included, whatever cards you hold.
More cards raise your share in step with what they cost, so they change how often you win and how much you spend, not what you get back for each card. The one real comparison is between games: the same stake buys a larger share in a quieter room, while a busy room usually pays a bigger prize. Neither is better in itself; what matters is the prize against the number of cards in play.
How Often an Extra Ball Completes a Card
The chance that the extra balls complete one card, when 30 balls are still in a 60-ball drum after a 30-ball draw. On a 90-ball game 60 balls remain, and one extra ball completes a card that is one short only 1.67% of the time.
What an Extra Ball Is Worth
An extra ball is worth what it can add, multiplied by the chance of adding it. Take a card one number short of a pattern that would add 50 times the card stake, with 30 balls left and nothing else on the cards able to change. The chance that the next ball is the missing number is 3.33%, so on average the ball is worth 1.67 card stakes. If several cards are one number short, each missing number adds its own share to that value.
In short: Any price above that figure costs more than the ball returns on average, and any price below it returns more.
Games set their own price for each ball, usually from the size of the win it could complete, and the price is shown before you buy. The comparison is therefore one you can make on the screen: the pattern the ball would complete, what it pays, how many balls are left, and the price asked. Extra balls raise what a round costs, and their price climbs exactly when a card is close, so decide on a limit for them before the round starts and play only with money you can afford to lose.
Choosing a Game
The one figure that sums up a video bingo game is its return, stated in the help screen. Some games state two figures, one without extra balls and one that includes them. Compare like with like, and read which of the two a game is quoting before setting it beside another.
The jackpot conditions come next, and they are easy to miss. A jackpot that is paid only with every card active means a round on fewer cards cannot win it, whatever the cards show. Express games draw more balls at once and offer no extra balls, which removes the decision altogether. Every game can be tried in demo mode on the free bingo games page before any stake is set.
Practice the Decisions Free
Most of these games offer extra balls after the draw, and in demo mode deciding costs nothing. Watch what each ball is priced at and compare it with the chances in the table above. Every other game is on the free bingo games page.
Bingo Myths
A balanced card wins more often
Choose cards with an even spread of high and low numbers, odd and even, and every column represented, because that is what the draw looks like.
Reality Check
Every set of numbers on a card is exactly as likely to be called as any other. A single 75-ball card needs 41.37 calls on average for its first line, and that figure is the same for every card, whatever mix of high, low, odd or even it carries.
Long games favor the middle numbers
The longer a game runs, the more the calls drift toward the middle of the range, so cards full of middle numbers do better in long games.
Reality Check
Each call is drawn from the balls still in the drum, and each of those is equally likely. The average of the numbers called does sit near the middle, but that tells you nothing about which specific numbers will come next, and a card of middle numbers finishes no sooner.
Some numbers are hot and others are due
A number that has come up often lately will keep coming, and one that has not been called for weeks is due.
Reality Check
The draw has no memory. A ball machine or a random number generator gives every remaining number the same chance on every call, whatever happened in earlier games.
A card that is nearly full is owed its last number
When a card is one number short after a long wait, the missing number is bound to come soon, so an extra ball is a safe buy.
Reality Check
The missing number is one ball among those left, exactly as likely as any other. With 30 balls left, one extra ball finds it with a chance of 1 in 30, however long the card has waited.
Bingo Strategy FAQ
Only the number of cards. Every card needs all of its numbers called, so no card or choice of numbers finishes sooner than another. Holding more of the cards in play raises your share of the prize in proportion to what they cost, and that is the whole of it.
No. Auto-daub marks the numbers for you, so it cannot change which numbers are called. What it removes is the risk of missing one, which in a hall can cost a prize if a win goes unclaimed before the next call.
No. The stake scales what each pattern pays, not how often it comes in. The draw is the same at every stake, so a larger bet raises the size of every win and loss together.
Yes, when one appears. A wild ball completes any missing number, so a card one short is certain to finish and a card two short needs only one more. Games do not publish how often a wild ball turns up, so it cannot be counted on when deciding what an ordinary extra ball is worth.