BINGO!! Shouted an excited player back in 1920 instead of Beano. Since then, the game was replaced by the modern bingo game. The old game of luck was called Beano for the simple fact that the numbers from the game cards were covered by beans.

Today bingo/online bingo is a multi billion business with thousands of land based and online bingo halls and millions of players all over the world.

The game is simple, you get a game card with numbers appearing on 5x5 matrices. To be a winner, the drawn numbers must form a pattern on your card. The winner calls out the word BINGO and after the caller verifies the game card, the player can pick up his/her winnings. The caller is the person, who besides verifying the game cards, randomly pulls out numbered balls from a container, calls the number on the ball. Each player then searches for it on his card. You need to be quick to mark the numbers on your card, because usually the time period between pulling the balls out from the container is pretty short.

There are many combinations that win, you can have a single line, two lines, the four corners, centre cross, L, T, Y, postage stamp (2x2 and in a corner) inner square (4 × 4), roving square (3 × 3), roving kite (a 3 × 3 diamond) and full card.

You can play multiple cards (having 30 cards is not an unusual number), but of course, in this case, your eyes and hands will have to move as fast as a greased lightning. In this case the player is seated at a separate table and the cards are fastened to the tabletop with adhesive tape. But to be really quick, you must have a special marker, called dauber.

There is a big difference between online and live bingo. Players choosing to play the online version of this game can sit back and watch how the automated software marks the called number on his card(s) and while doing this, the players can chat among them.

It doesn’t really matter which version of the game you choose, the main thing is to have some fun and besides, to win some money too.