In the traditional game of Bingo, which is also known as ‘Housie’ in some countries such as New Zealand, India and Australia, the aim is simple – to cross off numbers from your card as they are read out by a bingo caller until you have a winning line.
Although bingo is played in places such as church halls and social clubs, most bingo is enjoyed in large Bingo halls where bigger groups of players often mean that large cash prizes are on offer.
When a player enters a bingo hall, they will buy booklets of bingo tickets, with some experienced players able to keep track of and play multiple tickets at a time. Under the United Kingdom rules of bingo these tickets have twenty seven squares on them with three rows and nine columns. Each row then contains five squares of numbers along with four blank spaces.
Once the bingo caller signals the start of the bingo games, traditionally with the words ‘Eyes Down’, a series of random numbers are then selected and called out. These numbers are selected either by the traditional method of picking balls out of a tombola or, in more modern and fast paced bingo games, by an electronic random number generator.
Depending on the game being played, a player can win at bingo by having every number on either one, two or all three of their lines filled. When this happens, a player usually shouts ‘Bingo!’ to signify their victory.
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