How To Play Bingo
Our guide to playing bingo is easy to follow and gives you all the information you need to start playing at your local bingo club. If you want to know how to play online then check out our guide here.
Bingo is traditionally played in large halls or social clubs, before you can join a game you'll need to become a member of a bingo club. Joining clubs in the UK is pretty easy, most welcome new players with open arms! If you join one of the big bingo clubs like Mecca Bingo or Gala you might even get a few freebies when you join.
If you've never played bingo before then just tell the person who signs you up at the club. They will be more than happy to explain the basic rules, show you how to mark your bingo cards and most importantly how to claim a win! Don't be shy, the bingo clubs want your business so it's in there interest to ensure you know how to play.
When I first started playing bingo at my local Mecca one of the staff sat with me for a few games, giving me advice and chatting away. I would recommend that you don't try to play too many cards when you first start - it can be tricky for a new player to mark more than one card at a time.
The 'Caller' is the person who stands at the top of the hall and calls out the numbers as they appear from the bingo machine or computer. You'll need to pay attention to the caller as the numbers will come out fairly fast. Using a magic marker or dauber you must mark off any numbers called that appear on your card.
In UK style bingo (90 balls, triple chance) your bingo card will have 3 horizontal lines of numbers per card. In a bingo game you normally have three ways to win, if all the numbers on one of your lines is called then you win a small cash prize! complete two lines and you'll win a bigger cash prize, complete the whole card and you've won the 'full house' jackpot.
If you complete any of the lines or the full house you'll need to stop the caller from announcing anymore numbers. You can do this by shouting 'Bingo' or more commonly shouting 'right'. It doesn't really matter what you shout, as long as you get the callers attention.
Your card will then be checked against the called numbers to verify that you have won. Don't worry if you've made a mistake - it's pretty common. If you win you'll get your cash in a nice little envelope!
You might be wondering how much it costs to play bingo? Each club sets it's own prices, but you can expect to pay anything between £8 and £15 for a full evening session at a bingo club. That will buy you bingo cards for all the games in that session, a session normally lasts about 2 hours and includes multiple games.
Jackpot Joy - £100 Cash Match
Jackpot Joy Bingo offers one of the best cash match deals on the net, at a whopping 100% for new players. If you join today and add £50 to your Jackpot Joy account you will get £100 to play with! Jackpot Joy is highly recommended by us and has a community of over 800,000 players.