Offline Bingo vs. Online Bingo Which is for you & How to play Is it just me or is the most difficult part of bingo playing, picking out what dauber color you want? I have always been lucky with hot pink for some reason! What about you? I grew up with a mother who loved bingo, but not nearly as much as her best friend so lovingly and aptly named by her friends as “Bingo Betty”. Bingo is a very popular game with much of the world enjoying it. My grandfather, a fire station chief in a small village in upstate New York set up a bingo hall in the station with games played every Saturday and Sunday afternoon. I got to help my grandmother who was lucky herself at bingo with marking her cards. (She always split the prize with me which of course made me love the game even more.) Flat out, you know the game is popular when the back room of a church hall has a bingo board that is covered by a drape until Friday night swings around. The game of bingo has been around for centuries…literally. The inventive pasta-eating Italians designed the basic idea of the game, and its popularity soon swept worldwide. In 1929 it finally came to North America and was called ‘Beano.’ Nearly 100 years later, the game is still going strong and played daily in the USA.
Traditional bingo games, or hall bingo as some call it, is a great way to socialize with friends and family while sitting in a laid back atmosphere and munching on goodies. The game itself is very simple to play. Here are the basics.
The objective of any style bingo game is to achieve a pattern on the card by marking out numbers that are yelled out by the caller during the game. Bingo cards have the letters "B," "I," "N," "G" and "O" running across the top of the card. A column of numbers is under each letter. And of course, there is a ‘free space’ in the center to get your game started.
1. Get one or more bingo cards and your dauber and be ready!
2. Cover the "free space” in the center of your card with your marker.
3. Listen as the caller yells out a letter and number such as "B-2."
4. Find the "B" column. Check to see if you have a number 2. If you have it, mark it.
8. The caller will keep calling so listen well. Place a mark over each combination you have.
9. When you get a winning pattern- usually a straight line going horizontally, vertically or diagonally, yell out "BINGO!"
10. Wait to have your card checked to verify that you are indeed a winner! Then you will be able to collect your prize and keep playing more games. .
Simple isn’t it? But, with that in mind… move over bingo halls, online bingo is a rapidly growing phenomenon on the web. So, let’s break this down. How is an online bingo site different from going to your local bingo hall? Well, the main difference is that you can sit at home and play in your pajamas instead of dragging yourself all the way to the bingo hall. Online bingo is played with the pretty much the same rules as the traditional bingo played in your local bingo hall with prizes and payouts calculated in much the same way.
Online bingo is fast paced compared to bingo hall games. The best thing about online bingo is that it is open twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. How’s that for all you insomniacs and bingo-holics out there? Great eh?
So, you have a question….How do you play online bingo? That my dears has a very simple answer. Just like traditional bingo, you will have a set of cards that you will mark when a number/letter combination is called out. Most online bingo sites just require a quick registration thru your email and then you can kick back and play.
Online bingo games are computer operated. The computer will randomly pick your purchased cards. Bingo players will purchase the amount of cards they wish to play every game. Keep in mind; you can play ‘free’ online bingo as well.
Every online bingo game has a display board; which helps the player keep track of the numbers called. Numbers are announced usually 10 seconds apart, so keep up. Some great benefits of playing online is that many online bingo sites use auto-daubing, where, players are not required to mark their cards; the computer does this for you. What could be easier? Oh yeah, and some other great benefits of playing online is that there are such features as bingo chat, and winning prizes! So, it really is just like being at a bingo hall! Doesn’t this make you just want to start playing now?
Whether you want to play in a bingo hall or join the world of online bingo, my advice to you is this…Enjoy and win!
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