Playing Online Bingo From Home

Long gone are days when you have to take the bus into town to visit your local bingo hall. People across the UK can enjoy playing bingo right from the comfort of their homes. This is possible due dramatic emergence of online bingo played on the Internet. There are a massive variety of online bingo games available at a huge variety of site. And a player can sign up as many different sites as he/she likes. The industry has progressed massively over the last decade to a stage where online bingo is easy to play, convenient and with huge prizes that it wouldn't be possible to win in offline games.

To play online bingo you first must register on your desired site. When the player has signed in, and possibly deposited they can enter a bingo room. Each player can buy a certain number of randomly generated cards per game. The player then has to match the numbers on the their cards to the numbers on the balls being called

There are two main types of bingo played around the world. In the USA 75-ball bingo is more popular. This involves a 5 by 5 card with the centre square usually marked as free. Here in the UK, parts of Europe, Australia and parts of South America the more popular version is a 90-ball game, marked on a 9 by 3 card. Speed Bingo is another variation played exactly the same, but numbers are simply called much quicker.

In 90-ball bingo, each card has three horizontal lines and nine columns. Each line contains five numbers with the first column containing numbers from 1-10, the second column containing 11-20, the third column containing 21-30, all the way through to the final column which contains numbers from 81-90.

90 ball bingo games are usually played in three stages: one line, two lines and Full House. In a "one line" game players need to mark a complete horizontal line across one card (i.e. matching 5 numbers). In a 'two lines' game you have to complete any two marked lines horizontally across one card (i.e. matching 10 numbers). Finally a "Full House" means all the numbers marked off on one card (all 15 numbers), as in a regular coverall game. The prizes usually differ at as the game progresses with the Full House always being the largest prize a player can win.

Nowadays there's so much more to online bingo than the just the bingo cards. Most Web sites that host bingo games include tonnes of added extras, including bingo news, pictures and comments from past winners, news about upcoming special tournaments and events, and a list of prizes or places where you can redeem gift certificates you win online. It is also now commonplace for an online bingo site to host a variety of slots which can be played in unison with the bingo game.

UK bingo sites now pretty much all host a chat room as part of the bingo site and this is the pinnacle of modern day online bingo. There is no obligation to chat when you join a bingo game if you choose you may sit at your computer and play. Also if you don't like a particular person's chatter -- you may find them to be rude or annoying, perhaps -- you can just click on their name and hit the "Ignore" button. The chat is moderated by a chat host (CH) who will not only lead the fun but will also run a number of chat games. Bingo sites have been very inventive with these chat games and winning these will gain you more points to spend on bingo.