Bingo
Bingo is one of the oldest gambling games still in existence, with a history that dates back to 1530, during which time it was played as a lottery alternative by aristocrats. These days bingo is at its best online, where it is played by anyone with an internet connection and the desire to win a lot of money.
How to Find the Best Bingo Casinos
You have a few options at your disposal when it comes to online bingo. You can play in purpose-made bingo rooms, which only offer games of bingo and tend to have huge prizes and lots of variants; you can play on betting sites, where things are typically smaller but the games are still plentiful; or you can try an instant play bingo variant in the game’s room of your favourite online casino.
There are a few factors that dictate which bingo casinos are the best, including:
The Games: Variety is key. You want a bingo casino that provides players access to a number of top games, ranging from bonus bingo to standard 30-ball and 75-ball variations. It’s also nice to have a few themed bingo events thrown in, such as Deal or no Deal Bingo.
The Bonuses: Most of the best casinos online offer some form of welcome bonus, and this is also true for bingo casinos. But that’s not all, as you also want a casino that offers you incentives to stick around even when that bonus has dried up. Look for loyalty schemes and reload bonuses in addition to new member bonuses.
The Jackpots: The prize pools are very important, and you need a bingo casino that can facilitate this. You want one that is large enough to attract huge numbers of players (the more players, the higher the prize pool) as well as one that offers some kind of jackpot, either in the form of a progressive jackpot for a particular game, or a daily/weekly/monthly jackpot across the site.
The Best Games of Bingo
Most big online casinos have a few themed bingo games. These are often based on popular TV shows and are used as a way to draw fans of those shows in. And they work, because we find ourselves gravitating towards these games all of the time.
Some of our favourites include:
- Deal or no Deal
- Who Wants to be a Millionaire
- Wheel of Fortune
Some of these games merely use the name and the aesthetic of the show they are based on, but others go a little deeper than that.
Deal or no Deal, for instance, gives everyone who plays a box. If they win, then at the end they will be asked if they want to keep their box or swap it, with every other player offered the chance to vote in order to help the winner out. The bonus amount they get will then depend on the box that they open.
The Best Bingo Payouts
Bingo payouts work a little differently than other games. When you play most games of bingo, you are playing against other players, not the house. The house merely takes a cut from each ticket and then uses the rest of the money to build the prize pool—in many ways, the house operates like they do during games of tournament poker.
This means that your chances of winning as a player are exactly the same as the next player’s chances of winning. The house doesn’t take any additional money—they don’t have a horse in this race. And the only way you can have less or more chance of winning than a fellow player is to buy more or less tickets than them.
Countries
The Best Bingo Software Developers
Bingo rooms work like online casinos in that the many hundreds of sites often use software from just a handful of developers. One of these is Playtech, who have played a part in many online gambling advancements and have created software that is currently used on thousands of casinos.
There is very little that Playtech hasn’t done in this industry. Along with their bingo rooms, they also create slots, table games, poker, and even binary options trading platforms. They are a behemoth of the online gambling industry, and if you have been a player for any length of time then there is a good chance you have spent countless hours on software created by them.
There are also some smaller developers out there who have played a role in bringing quality bingo software to the industry. They include 888, who run a large gambling empire that incorporates poker rooms, sports betting, slots, and more. Their bingo room is one of the best around and it has come a long way in recent years.
Online Bingo Security
In a world where hacks, scams and phishing are common, it’s normal to question the security of a bingo casino and to be concerned for your safety playing on that site. However, if you stick with a regulated, verified casino, then there should be no such concerns.
These sites are verified and regulated; they use the best encryption technology and they are also insured against certain bad case scenarios. In other words, your information should be safe and secure and there should be no risk at all. But if something does do wrong, then you might have recourse for action—complaining to the gambling authority that regulates them or even to the legal authority in your location.
The Future of Bingo Casinos
A number of top online casinos are focusing more and more efforts on their bingo rooms, while many bingo-only sites are also being created to cash-in on the current bingo craze. This has been spurred on by the increase in the number of people gambling using their mobile devices, as well as the number of people who like to gamble in a social environment, chatting with others while they all aim for the same goal.
Bingo is perfect for this and is actually one of the few games that is. It’s not as competitive or as unforgiving as poker, it’s not as lonely as blackjack, and it’s not as high risk as sports betting. It’s casual community gambling at its best and that’s what the current trend is crying out for.