Friday, August 14, 2009

Bingo and the Masses

Bingo is a game which is quite popular among the masses. The sheer simplicity of this game makes it easy to play and so more and more people like to try their hand at this game. You do not need special skills or strategies to play bingo. Earlier this game was widely played by females and it was considered to be a game played by elderly females. But various studies conducted recently have found that the average age of bingo players has dropped from the earlier 50-60's to mid 30's. An interesting trend which has been observed is that about 30-40% of bingo players are males and they too enjoy this game of numbers.

The reason behind increasing popularity of bingo is the simplicity of the game. You have to mark numbers on your ticket as they are called by the caller. So, anyone having a basic understanding of numbers can easily play bingo. There are various winning combinations and the winning pattern is declared at the start of the game.

There are two games in bingo - 75 ball bingo and 90 ball bingo. The 90 ball bingo ticket has three lines and nine columns. Each line has five numbers and the numbers range from 1 to 90. The most common winning combinations are one line, two lines and full house.

If you are playing 75 ball bingo, your bingo ticket will have five columns and five rows. There are 24 numbers ranging from 1 to 75 and the letters B, I, N, G and O are at the top of the rows with one letter in each row. Winning combinations of a line, two lines and full house are present in this form of bingo, but apart from these three there are other ways to win. Some other patterns commonly used are diagonals and corners. Apart from these numbers and alphabets like T, C, D, E, F etc are sometimes used as winning combinations by some bingo halls. Other winning patterns include stamp, stamps at the corners, diamond and other such shapes. Bingo is gaining popularity irrespective of whether it is being played at traditional bingo halls or at online bingo rooms.

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