Bingo (Commonwealth)

Bingo or housey-housey (former name in the United Kingdom) or housie (New Zealand, India and Australia) is a game of probability that began in Italy in the 1500s. The game Bingo differs from Tambola which was tumbling of slips randomly picked. Bingo is believed to have migrated to France, Great Britain, and other parts of Europe in the 1700s. Players mark off numbers on a ticket as they are randomly called out, in order to achieve a winning combination.

Bingo originates from the Italian lottery, Lo Giuoco del Lotto d'Italia. From Italy, the game spread to France and was known as Le Lotto, played by the French aristocracy. Tambola as we know it today was used in nineteenth-century Germany as an educational tool to teach children multiplication tables, spelling, and even history.

Bingo verses Tambola

It is not to be confused with the similar American version of bingo, as the tickets and the calling are slightly different. Innovations in the probability game Tombola have been used by educators in mass participation of educational game to disseminate knowledge and differs from quiz games where there is restriction of one to one participation.

Description of the game

A typical housie/Bingo ticket

A typical bingo ticket is shown to the right. It contains twenty-seven spaces, arranged in nine columns by three rows. Each row contains five numbers and four blank spaces. Each column contains either one, two, or very rarely three, numbers:

• The first column contains numbers from 1 to 9,
• The second column numbers from 10 to 19,
• The third 20 to 29 and so on up until the last column, which contains numbers from 80 to 90 (the 90 being placed in this column as well).

The game is presided over by a caller, whose job it is to call out the numbers and validate winning tickets. He or she will announce the prize or prizes for each game before starting. The caller will then usually say "Eyes down" to indicate that he is about to start. He or she then begins to call numbers as they are randomly selected, either by an electronic random number generator (RNG), by drawing counters from a bag or by using balls in a mechanical draw machine. Calling may take the format of simple repetition in the framework, "Both the fives, fifty five", or "Two and three, twenty three", but some numbers have special calls due to their significance.

A typical "dabber" or "dauber", used for both U.S. and U.K. bingo tickets

The different winning combinations are:

• Line – covering a horizontal line of five numbers on the ticket.
• Two Lines – covering any two lines on the same ticket.
• Full House – covering all fifteen numbers on the ticket.
  • In New Zealand in bonus (Super Housie) games, often three lines may be claimed – top, middle and bottom, usually with much larger prizes, are also played at various times throughout the session.
  • In the UK, however, it is most common for a line game to be followed directly by a two line game and a full house game, or just by a full house game.
  • In the UK's National Bingo Game only a full house game is ever played. The record payout for the national bingo game is over £1,100,000
  • In all cases, the last number called must be in the winning sequence. If a player does not stop the game in time and the caller calls out the next number the player's winning claim is often invalidated.

When players first come to the venue (often a church hall, rugby club or other place with sufficient tables and chairs, including in the UK many specifically designed "bingo clubs") they can buy a book of tickets. Players generally play between one and six books. In New Zealand a book usually contains fifty tickets which are played over the course of the night. In UK bingo clubs, playing is divided into sessions with different books, each with a designated number of pages. Players in the UK usually prefer to buy books of six tickets containing all possible numbers in different combinations.

As each number is called, players check to see if that number appears on their tickets. If it does, they will mark it with a special marker called a "dabber" or a "dauber", shown here. When all the numbers required to win a prize have been marked off, the player shouts in order to attract the caller's attention. There are no formal rules as to what can be shouted, but most players will shout "Yes" or "Bingo". Some players may also choose to shout "Line" or "House" depending on the prize, whilst others choose to shout "house" for any win (including a line or two lines), players may use any other call to attract the caller's attention (should they wish). An official or member of staff will then come and check the claim:

• In the UK with the increasing computerization of bingo systems, an Auto-Validate system is often used in large clubs where a 1 to 8 digit security code is read out by a member of staff and checked against the entry for that ticket on the system. This saves the club from the time-consuming exercise of reading out every number on the ticket.
• In smaller clubs, however, each number in the winning combination must be read out. The caller will check to see if each number has been called, and if it has, he will say something similar to "House correct – please pay out".

There will often be an interval halfway through the game. In Australia and New Zealand Super Housie tickets are played and raffles (if there are any) are drawn. In UK bingo halls it is most common for Mechanised Cash Bingo to be played (see below).

Business aspect

In New Zealand and Australia, housie is often used as a fund raiser by churches, sports teams, and other groups, and raffles are sold before the game.

Bingo, which used to be known as Housey Housey in the United Kingdom or Tambola in Asian countries , is an expanding and highly profitable business, with many companies competing for the customers' money. It too is often organised by churches, charities and social and sports clubs as a way to raise funds or innovative methods by institutions to organize a mass probability game with active participation of the audience.

The largest companies with bingo halls in the United Kingdom are Mecca Bingo Ltd. (part of The Rank Group plc) and Gala Bingo (Gala Coral Group Ltd.) In Northern Ireland, one of the largest bingo club groups is the Planet Bingo Group, with seven clubs around the province.

Online Bingo is also becoming increasingly popular with many different companies launching sites including Ladbrokes and The Sun.

As well as offering the familiar Housie/Bingo played by marking numbered books, most large clubs have their tables modified for the playing of Cash Housie or Mechanised Cash Bingo [Parti Bingo] (using coin slots or, increasingly in the 21st century, an electronic credit system). This is highly profitable for the operator, with a typical "take" of fifty percent of the stake.

In Northern Ireland bingo clubs, where the laws governing bingo games are different from in England, Scotland and Wales, it is common, when playing "parti bingo" for the caller to announce that a position or "card" has won, and ending the game, without the participation of the person playing. This enables the customer to play more positions in hope of a better chance of winning.

Mechanized cash bingo

Mechanised cash bingo differs from paper bingo, because it is played on a plastic bingo board, that is 4x4 square, and split up into four columns of colours. The customer chooses when they want to play, and insert a credit into a coin slot. The company involved will then use a computer (called a stage rig controller) to automatically take a "participation fee" which is set by the operator (usually between 40% and 60%). The rest of the credit is then put into the prize pool to be played for. There are only 80 numbers in play. The numbers are called a lot faster by the caller (usually around 1.5 seconds a number) and when a customer has a winning combination they press a claim button to stop the game. This is profitable for the operator as the games are so fast, and a huge parfee can be made in a few minutes. Winning combinations are usually any line down, across, diagonal, four corners or four centre squares.

This has also allowed bingo halls to focus on the more lucrative business of Mechanised Cash Bingo (MCB), known in Gala Bingo Clubs as Party Bingo, Mecca Bingo Clubs as Cashline and most independent clubs refer to it as either the two previously mentioned names or "table top" (relating to the fact that the boards are usually built into the table in front of the player) or 'Mini Cash Bingo'.

Online bingo

The prevalence of the online bingo games has dramatically increased the number of online gamers and many online gaming community members in the UK have taken up to start learning and participating in bingo.

Nicknames

Main article: List of British bingo nicknames

In the game of bingo in the United Kingdom, callers announcing the numbers have traditionally used some nicknames to refer to particular numbers if they are drawn. The nicknames are sometimes known by the rhyming phrase 'bingo lingo' and there are rhymes for each number from 1 to 90, some of which date back many decades. In some clubs the 'bingo caller' will say the number, with the assembled players intoning the rhyme in a call and response manner, in others, the caller will say the rhyme and the players chant the number. In 2003, Butlins holiday camps introduced some more modern calls devised by a Professor of Popular Culture in an attempt to bring fresh interest to bingo.

Since the introduction of the electronic Random Number Generator (RNG) in bingo halls in the UK, the usage of the nicknames or bingo calls above in mainstream bingo has dramatically decreased. Bingo with an electronic RNG is much less time consuming and it has been discovered that replacing the nicknames with a simple repetition (in the pattern "All the fives, fifty five" or "Two and four, twenty four").

Lucky 13

Playing the bingo-based game Lucky 13

Software used for calling the bingo-based game of Lucky 13

Lucky 13 is the name of a bingo-based game sometimes known has Sticky 13 which is played most commonly in public houses in the UK.

In the early 1990s a misconception about the Gaming Act of the day was that if bingo was played using playing cards instead of numbers this would allow public houses to get around the law, which prevented bingo being played for cash prizes in a public place, however since the gaming act has no description of how bingo is played this was to prove false. Despite the law a large number of public houses continued to play the game and still do so today. The current gaming act has since legalised all forms of small stakes bingo in public houses.

The game is played almost identical to the standard game of bingo played in UK clubs and bingo halls, but instead of using 90 numbers they use 52 playing cards and the tickets being replaced by a hand of 13 playing cards (each hand being marked to prevent card swapping). Most games are played for bonuses (sometimes known as snowballs).

Lucky 13 is usually played once or twice during the evening on a busy night as opposed to sessions with standard bingo, the most common night being on a quiz night.

See also

• Federation of European Bingo Associations
• Pakapoo

References

Bingo Lingo

Free Bingo Cards