Bingo Fest

A typical U.S. bingo card

Bingo cards are used to play various bingo games, including U.S. style bingo and UK style Housie. Cards are usually made of cardboard or non-reusable paper, but more and more bingo halls are beginning to use computerized cards. Bingo cards are printed in various styles (see below) with randomized bingo numbers. As bingo numbers are called, players either check off the boxes with a pen or marker, or use a bingo daber/dauber to stamp the box.

U.S. Bingo Cards

U.S. bingo cards are 5×5 squares, with the columns labeled B-I-N-G-O and with spots contains numbers between 1 and 75. The center square typically is a free spot, and often has the word “free” printed on it.

• Column B contains numbers 1 – 15
• Column I contains numbers 16 – 30
• Column N contains numbers 31 – 45
• Column G contains numbers 46 – 60
• Column O contains numbers 61 – 75

• There are 552,446,474,061,128,648,601,600,000 different cards possible.

UK Bingo Cards

UK Bingo, or Housie, cards are usually called tickets and differ greatly from U.S. Bingo cards. The cards contain three rows and nine columns. Each row contains five numbers and four blank spaces. Each column contains one, two or three numbers.

A typical housie/Bingo ticket

• Column 1 contains numbers 1 – 9
• Column 2 contains numbers 10 – 19
• Column 3 contains numbers 20 – 29
• Column 4 contains numbers 30 – 39
• Column 5 contains numbers 40 – 49
• Column 6 contains numbers 50 – 59
• Column 7 contains numbers 60 – 69
• Column 8 contains numbers 70 – 79
• Column 9 contains numbers 80 – 90

Other Types of Cards

• Flimsies
• Break Open

Sources

• Bingo Dictionary

Resources

• Bingo Card Creator
• Bingo Cards
• Online Bingo Card
• UK Style Bingo Card Maker
• UK Bingo Card Ticket Creator

During the second season, audience members play a more active role in the show as each audience member is given a corresponding Bingo ball number T-shirt that is connected to one of the two in-show contestants. If an audience members’ designated number is called and the in-show contestant answers the corresponding trivia question correctly, the audience member joins that contestant’s team (shown by putting on either a red cap or blue cap, depending on the contestant’s color.) If that contestant goes on to win the round, the audience member receives a copy of the Bingo America DVD Game along with $25. The audience participation aspect of Bingo America debuted during the April 18, 2008 episode of Season One.

At-home viewers are also allowed to play along with the show by printing out bingo cards available at GSN.com. GSN characterizes the play-at-home portion as an “instant win sweepstakes”. Once the taping of the show is complete and all of the randomly drawn numbers have been recorded, a computer generates thousands of bingo cards. In all, 100 winning cards are created that viewers can then download and print for the broadcast of the show a few weeks later. To win, players mark every number on their card that is announced during the show. The host repeats the numbers throughout the show and when a player gets a “Bingo”, they’re directed to GSN.com to claim their prize.

All winning players earn $50 except for select promotional “Winner Wednesdays” where the amount increases for some lucky winners. In Season One, GSN held a Tax Day promotion that raised the prize amount to $100. GSN also awarded $100 to lucky winners on the second night of the show as a way of giving back to fans after GSN.com experienced unexpectedly high traffic during the show’s second airing.

At-home viewers can earn an instant win if the in-show contestant selects both of their “Bingo Bonus Numbers” during the “Bingo Bonus Round.” The Superball from season 2 applies to the Bonus Numbers, as well, if it isn’t a winning number.

GSN does not place winning numbers on its website after the airing of the episode, unlike its predecessor, National Bingo Night.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Season one

The winner of the main game plays the Bingo Bonus Board, which has used two different formats. In the first season of the show, each number on the Bingo Bonus Board represented a cash amount or a prize, ranging anywhere from a junk prize (labeled the “FUN” prize, which could be either a supply of Pink’s hot dogs or a pet rock; the “FUN” prize was only won once), up to a grand prize of $100,000 cash. Every prize was repeated at least twice on the board. The player chose one number at a time, and won the first prize to be revealed twice.

Marine John Stefan was the first person to win $100,000, on April 11, 2008. Stefan won a grand total of $101,447.

Season two

In the second season, 55 of the 75 spaces have cash values hidden behind them, while 20 have “wrecking balls.” The contestant starts with the “B” row, the only row without wrecking balls. After each selection, the player may either leave the game with the money accrued to that point, or risk those winnings by picking a ball from the next row. If a wrecking ball is chosen, the game ends immediately, and the player loses the money accumulated in the Bonus Round. Originally, there was just one wrecking ball in the I row, three in the N row, six on the G row and ten on the O row; this has been changed to two on the I row, four on the N row, six on the G row and eight on the O row (a few other episodes had a 1-2-5-12 format). Contestants who make five successful picks keep all of their accumulated bonus money and get to activate the Bingo Sphere one more time for the Superball. If one of the contestant’s five chosen bonus numbers matches the one on the Superball, their bonus round winnings are augmented to $100,000.

John Hanlin was the first player to win the top prize, on October 22, 2008, under this format. Hanlin’s grand total was $101,331.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Two contestants compete. On each turn, a Bingo ball comes out of the hopper and a question is asked. Each ball has a number from 1 to 75 and a letter in the word “BINGO” printed on it. If the question is answered correctly, the player earns the letter from that ball and the number on the ball is added in dollars to the bank, which starts each day at $500 (e.g., if G-50 comes out, the pot increases by $50). If the letter is a duplicate already earned by the player, no extra letters are earned. The first player that spells out BINGO from the earned letters wins the game.

Two regular games are played. If a player wins both games, they win the match and receive all the money in the bank. The winner then plays the Bingo Bonus Board.

If time runs short during a game they go to the 50/50 round. In the 50/50 round the remaining questions of that game are asked in a multiple-choice fashion, with two possible answers given. If a player answers incorrectly at this point, credit for the question (and the given letter, if applicable) is automatically given to his or her opponent, but no money will be added to the bank for that question (in the earliest-taped episodes, money was still added to the bank even if a player got a question by default).

For the sponsored weeks of the show’s run, a Free-Space Ball with the sponsors’ logo acts as a wild card in the regular game. The player who answers a question correctly when that ball is rolled out can choose any letter, and $100 is added to the bank. Sponsors for season 1 included MoneyGram, Maxwell House, and Quilted Northern, whilst sponsors for season 2 include MoneyGram, Raisin Bran Crunch, and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

If the match is tied after two games, a five-question tie-breaker game is played. The first question’s answer begins with a B, the second question’s answer starts with I, and so on. The first to answer three questions correctly wins the money in the bank and goes on to play the Bingo Bonus Board for a chance at $100,000.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Bingo America is an American game show airing on GSN that follows two contestants as they try to compete to win up to $100,000, as well as letting at-home viewers print bingo cards at GSN.com that allow them to play along with the show to win money.

Created and produced by veteran television producer Andrew Glassman, the show was originally hosted by Patrick Duffy and Crystal Wallasch, both newcomers to the game show field. Critics did not like Duffy’s or Wallasch’s hosting jobs as well as had been hoped, and when its second season premiered on October 6, 2008, they were replaced by Richard Karn and Diane Mizota, respectively.

Links

• Bingo America on GSN.com
• Official Website of Glassman Media
• Bingo America at the Internet Movie Database

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Bingo is a gambling card game named by analogy to the game bingo. Each player is dealt X cards and Y cards are dealt face down in common. The value of each hand is the sum of the values of each card, where the cards have blackjack values. The cards on the board are gradually revealed with opportunities to bet along the way. Bingo is usually played high-low with the pot being split between the players with the highest and lowest point totals. The exception would be if one player loses all his cards he takes the entire pot.

One example of play is “Sixty Six Bingo”. Each player gets six cards and there are six common cards. In this case there would be rounds of betting before any common cards are turned over, after the first two cards are turned over, after the third and fourth cards are turned over and after the fifth and sixth cards are turned over.

While similar to the game bingo, the card game should not be confused with bingo cards, which are used to play bingo or housie.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.