Online bingo

75-ball and 90-ball online bingo

Online bingo comes mainly in two formats: 75-ball bingo on a 5 by 5 card, common in the United States, and 90-ball bingo on a 3 by 9 ticket, common in Europe. Both draw numbers at random and you win by completing the required pattern first.

In 75-ball bingo, the Wizard of Odds describes a card of 24 numbers plus a free square in the centre, with numbers from 1 to 75. Rooms can set different winning patterns, and the Wizard of Odds calculates that a single card needs 41.37 balls on average for its first bingo. In 90-ball bingo, each ticket has three rows of nine cells, with exactly five numbers in each row. Prizes are based on covering rows: usually one row, two rows and all three, often called one line, two lines and full house.

How online bingo rooms and prizes work

A bingo room is a scheduled game with a fixed ticket price in which all players compete for the same prizes. Unlike roulette or blackjack, you play against the other players in the room, not against the house.

The UK Gambling Commission describes bingo as equal chance gaming, played either for a prize pool made of players’ stakes less participation fees, or for a set of prizes that do not depend on how many people play. The two models behave differently. With a pool, more players mean bigger prizes but more competition. With fixed prizes, the Wizard of Odds notes that your chances are inversely proportional to the number of competing cards: the fewer cards in play, the better your odds for the same prize. Some rooms add a progressive jackpot on top of the regular prizes; its terms are in the room information.

Why bingo RTP depends on the room

Bingo has no single house edge. The return depends on how much of the ticket money the room pays out in prizes, or, with fixed prizes, on how many cards are in play.

Land-based figures show how wide the range can be. According to the Wizard of Odds, Nevada casinos reported a win of only 3.24% on bingo between November 2011 and October 2012, while the manager of one Las Vegas bingo room put his hold at about 11%. Online rooms vary in the same way, and our summary therefore gives no figure for bingo. Look in the room information for the prize amounts or the share of ticket sales paid out, and compare them with the ticket price and the usual number of players. The RTP glossary entry explains how to read such figures.

How to choose a bingo room and casino

Choose the casino by licence and payout record first and the bingo room by its prize structure second.

• Confirm the licence in the list, then compare stated withdrawal times.
• Check that the casino currently runs the bingo variant you want; lobbies change often.
• In each room, compare the ticket price with the prizes and the number of players at the times you play.
• Prefer fixed-prize rooms at quiet times if you want better odds per ticket.
• If you play with a bonus, check the wagering requirement and whether bingo tickets count toward it.

Small ticket prices make bingo easy to start with a modest deposit; our low deposit casino list shows casinos with a minimum deposit of 10 or less.

Playing bingo responsibly

Bingo feels social and inexpensive, but games follow each other without a break and small ticket costs add up over a long session. Pre-buying tickets for many games and auto-daub features make it easy to spend more than planned.

Decide how much you want to spend on a session before you buy tickets, and set a deposit limit in your casino account so the decision holds. If bingo stops being entertainment, the tools on our responsible gambling page, including self-exclusion, can help.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between 75-ball and 90-ball bingo?

75-ball bingo uses a 5 by 5 card with 24 numbers and a free centre square, and wins come from completing a pattern. 90-ball bingo uses a 3 by 9 ticket with five numbers in each row, and prizes are usually paid for one line, two lines and a full house. The ball count changes the pace, not the fairness.

Is online bingo rigged?

Bingo at a licensed casino draws numbers at random under the regulator’s rules, and in the UK bingo must be equal chance gaming, which means every player in a game has the same chance. The operator earns from fees or the share of ticket money not paid out. Check the casino’s licence in the regulator’s public register.

How are bingo prizes calculated?

Either as a pool, where prizes come from the ticket money less the operator’s fees, or as fixed prizes set in advance regardless of how many people play. The UK Gambling Commission recognises both models. Pool prizes grow with the number of players; fixed prizes stay the same, so fewer players means better odds.

Does buying more bingo tickets improve my chances?

Yes, each extra ticket raises your share of the cards in play, and with it your chance of winning. It also raises your cost by the same proportion, so your expected return per ticket stays the same. Playing in quieter rooms with fixed prizes improves your odds without spending more.

Sources: Wizard of Odds: bingo, Wizard of Odds: 75-number bingo probabilities, Wizard of Odds: analysis of 90-number bingo, UK Gambling Commission: how bingo is defined