Online Bingo Variants

 Online Bingo Variants

90 ball

90 ball is the British traditional form of bingo. The game is played on a 9x3-card with some blank spaces. Each line contains numbers within 5 of the 9 spaces. Each column contains numbers from 0 to 3. In column 1, the numbers are from numbers 1-10. Column 2 is from numbers 11-20. Column 3 is from numbers 21-30. You can win prizes for finishing a single line, two lines, or the entire house. This type of bingo is the mainstay of UK bingo sites. You can find it at any of them, almost 24/7. The rules for creating 90 ball bingo cards on different sites vary. Some use a skewed numbers distribution (traditional in bingo halls), where the first column is 0-9, then the second is 10-19, and so forth until the last column is 80-90. Some sites require that the numbers appear in numerical order. Others do not. On some sites, there are no blank columns. Dragonfish, for example, allows blank columns, but doesn't enforce numerical order. At Virtue Fusion, however, there are no blank columns, and numbers must be in numerical order. Below are screenshots showing these differences. The left side shows a strip with tickets from Dragonfish and the right side shows a strip with tickets from Virtue Fusion/Playtech bingo sites. Virtue Fusion offers a smaller number of potential 90-ball cards than Dragonfish, but this is an excellent result.

75 ball

Internationally, 75 ball bingo is the most popular. It is played on a 5x5 card with all spaces filled in with numbers. However, the centre space can be marked off for no cost. Column 1 only has numbers 1-15, column 2 from 16-30, column 3 is from 31-45, column 4 is from 46--60, column 5 is from 61-75.

You can choose from a variety of 75-ball bingo sub-variants.

Coverall games require that all numbers are daubed.

Pattern bingo is a variant with 75 balls. A pattern is marked on the card. The player needs to daub the numbers included in the pattern to win.

The Swedish Bingo 5 Line variant (also called Swedish Bingo) has 75 balls and prizes for 1, 2, and 3 lines. On the 5 x 5, lines can be either horizontal, vertical, diagonally or from corner to corner. In this 75 ball game, the centre space is not usually free.

These scoring methods are available for 75 ball games. Bede Gaming's 75 ball game has three prizes, one each for the line, the pattern, and the coverall.

While most UK bingo sites have 75 ball rooms, there is often a smaller selection of 75 ball rooms. They may not be open 24/7 because the emphasis is on 90 ball.

80 ball

The 80 ball bingo game is played on a 4-x4 card. Each space must be filled. This card looks very different from other bingo cards. There are different colours for each column, shutters that cover the numbers, and a dauber. It's based on the mechanised bingo games at UK bingo halls, which are played between live caller Bingo games. Column 1 (red), only contains numbers between 1 and 20, Column 2 is yellow, which includes numbers between 20 and 40, and so on. Scoring works the same way as 75 ball but with no diagonal lines. 80 ball can be found at Cozy Bingo sites and Tombola. There is also a Virtue Fusion network room with 80 balls. But not all sites have it. Why Play 40 Ball Bingo?