Bingo

A game starts once ticket sales close. Numbers are drawn one at a time and called out, and players mark any matching numbers on their tickets. The first ticket to complete the pattern for the current prize wins it; if two tickets complete it on the same number, the prize is usually shared. Online, "auto-daub" marks tickets automatically, so players can hold dozens of tickets in one game.

The two main formats are:

• 90-ball bingo, the standard in the UK and much of Europe. Each ticket has three rows of nine columns holding 15 numbers. Prizes are paid for one line, two lines and a full house.
• 75-ball bingo, the standard in North America. Each card is a 5×5 grid headed B-I-N-G-O with a free centre square, and games are played for patterns such as a line, corners, letters or a full card ("blackout").

Online rooms also run faster variants such as 80-ball (a 4×4 grid) and 30-ball speed bingo.

Bingo is a pool game. The prize fund is a share of ticket sales, or a guaranteed amount set by the operator, so a player's chance of winning depends on how many tickets are in play rather than on fixed odds. The return to players is therefore set by the room: how much of each ticket goes to the prize pool, and whether guaranteed prizes are topped up when few tickets sell.

Online bingo is usually sold as a network: a software provider runs shared rooms across many operator brands, so each brand can offer busy games and larger prizes than its own players alone would support. Operators compete on promotions, chat moderation and the slots and instant games offered alongside the rooms, which often generate more revenue than the bingo itself. Suppliers compete on network liquidity, the variety of room formats and the tools for community management.

Suppose a 90-ball room sells 1,000 tickets at 0.50 and returns 80% of sales as prizes. The prize fund is 400, typically split between one line, two lines and the full house. A player holding 10 of the 1,000 tickets has roughly a 1% chance of the full house in that game.

• Keno — a drawn-number game played against a paytable instead of other players.
• RNG (random number generator) — how online numbers are drawn.
• RTP (return to player) — how the share of sales returned as prizes is expressed.

Find bingo software and network providers among game developers and platform providers.