Understanding the bingo board

Understanding the bingo board

While bingo is primarily a game of luck, there is a bit of skill and strategy that smart players rely on to win more games. In order to create a winning strategy that will work for you it is important to understand the mechanics of the bingo game and the bingo card.

Each bingo card features twenty four different numbers plus a free spot in the center of the card. There are actually two different forms of bingo cards, disposable paper sheets and hard permanent cards. The disposable cards are marked using a special marker called a blotter or a dauber, while permanent cards are marked using shutters built into the cards or plastic discs placed over the numbers. In most games players have the option of playing more than one card. Sometimes there will be a limit to how many cards can be played, while other games allow an unlimited number of cards to be played.

Each column of the bingo card is headed by a letter – and those letters of course spell out BINGO. The number ranges in each column are:

B – 01-15
I – 16-30
N – 31-45
G – 46-60
O – 61-75

All of the columns contain five numbers, except for the N, which contains only four, due to the presence of the free space.

There are many patterns that can be used in a game of bingo, and the number of winning patterns will be specified at the start of the game. The most common winning pattern of course is the straight line, which can be either vertical, horizontal or diagonal. The free space can be used to complete any of these straight line patterns.

In addition to these classic patterns, outside four corners (in which the outer four corners must be covered), inside four corners (where the inside four corners are covered), coverall or blackout (where every number on the board must be covered), and special shapes such as the letter T, are sometimes used.

The bingo game will use 75 lightweight balls, representing each of the possible numbers on the bingo cards. These balls are housed either in a ball cage or a glass air powered box, and they are removed one by one until there is a winner. An electronic board is generally used to display each number as it is called.