Video Bingo & Game Show Bingo

If you’ve played bingo at a few different UK sites, you’ll know that the prize pools and atmosphere in online bingo rooms can vary dramatically depending on how popular the bingo site is and on the time of day you want to play bingo.  But did you know that there are some other types of bingo game that aren’t affected by the number of other players around?

Video bingo is one of them; it’s extremely popular in Brazil and other Latin American countries but less well known in the UK.  While there are not many UK facing sites offering video bingo in its classic form, live casino game shows with a similar mechanic such as Mega Ball are becoming more and more popular here. But just how do all these games differ from traditional bingo?

What Is Video Bingo?

There is a fundamental difference between video bingo and the sort of classic multi player bingo offered by Playtech, Dragonfish etc:

• In regular online bingo, you are playing against other players.  The more of them there are, the bigger the prizes you can win because there’s more ticket sale money to add to the prize pool.  Conversely, as the number of tickets in play goes up your chance of winning something goes down.
• In video bingo, you are playing against the house.  The prizes you can win are a multiple of your stake. Both the size of the prizes and your chances of winning them remain constant from game to game regardless of other players.

This means that an operator can add video bingo games to their site without having to worry about whether they will attract enough players to make the prizes attractive.

Classic Video Bingo

Classic video bingo games such as Immortal Romance Bingo work by releasing a set number of balls and scoring your cards on the basis of lines or patterns completed with those numbers.  You may then be given the opportunity to buy a limited number of extra balls one at at time to try to complete more lines or patterns. The extra balls are individually priced depending on the chance of completing a line or pattern and the size of the prize for doing so.

If you think this sounds familiar you’re absolutely right – it’s the way that extra spins work in Slingo!  Indeed, Slingo is much more closely related to video bingo than you might think.  The set number of spins is analagous to the set number of balls, and of course there’s the opportunity to buy extra spins.  Where Slingo differs is that you only have one card, and the game plays an awful lot slower than video bingo so is arguably better entertainment value.

Most but not all video bingo games are based on a 90 ball bingo game with 30 balls released.  There are many more ways to win than in a regular 90 ball game though – as you can see from the screenshot, in Immortal Romance Video Bingo there are 15 ways to win, including two which award a bonus round. You can usually buy up to 4 tickets, typically for as little as 1p each.

The Return to Player in this type of video bingo game is similar to that of slot games, and that’s generally a LOT better than you’ll find in multiplayer bingo.  Why? Because the operator can make video bingo available without any of the expensive overheads such as hosted chat.

If you play video bingo at a UK facing site you may well find that the ability to buy extra balls is sometimes not available.  This can be either because buying an extra ball doesn’t help you complete a line or pattern, or because the cost of the extra ball would be too high to conform with the UK stake limits of £5 (or £2 if you’re under 25) which apply to video bingo and Slingo as well as to slot games.

There’s less choice of classic video bingo games at UK casinos than in the past, perhaps because of game providers not wanting to add stake limit functionality just for the UK.

Mutant Forms Of Video Bingo

Luckily for UK players who like video bingo, there are plenty of other games that have been designed to work in a very similar way but without the opportunity to buy extra balls.  Most but not all are live casino game shows (which we’ll come on to in a minute).

For those who don’t want to go down the game show route, there’s a video bingo game from G Games that is called simply Bingo 90.  You may have seen this in the bingo part of the lobby at Jumpman sites.  35 balls are released in this game with no opportunity to buy any more, and you can buy up to 6 tickets; each ticket has 15 numbers with no number placement rules.  There’s 13 ways to win ranging from 0.2x stake for a corner number all the way up to 5000x stake for a full house.

G Games also have Bingo 75.  The tickets in this game are classic 75 ball  – 5×5 with the centre square free and this time, they do follow number placement rules. 40 balls are released in each game and there are 11 ways to win.

The now retired game Bingo Millions is another example. Called Bingo Millions because there was a (vanishingly small) chance of winning a million pound jackpot, this game was available at many UK facing bingo sites from 2019 to 2022 and looked very much like regular online bingo. You won fixed prizes for completing lines or full house in set numbers of calls (regardless of any other players) and in the 90 ball version, 70 numbers would always be called.

Bingo Millions is no longer around but we suspect it was the truly awful Return To Player that players didn’t like, and not the gameplay.

Live Casino Game Show Bingo

Heading over to the live casino section we have the trailblazing game Mega Ball plus later games such as Monopoly Big Baller which combine video bingo game play with extra features and bonus rounds.

In these live casino game shows, it may seem as if you are playing against other players as you can see how many of them there are and interact in the chat window.  But you aren’t playing against them – you are playing in parallel with them.

For example, in Mega Ball the aim is to score as many lines as possible on each of your cards with the balls that are released.  It does not make any difference at all if other players do it too or do it first.  That’s why it’s possible for Evolution to offer a First Person version of Mega Ball with no live host and no other players.

Mega Ball – Evolution

Mega Ball was the first of this kind of game to be released.  It’s a 51 ball game played on 5×5 bingo cards.  You can place bets on up to 200 cards. In the game, 20 balls are initially released.  A multiplier wheel is then spun before the “Mega Ball” is released and any win lines that include that number have the multiplier applied. Some games randomly have two Mega Balls rather than one.

Vegas Ball Bonanza – Pragmatic Play

Vegas Ball Bonanza was Pragmatic Play’s contribution to the genre. It was a 30 ball game with 9 balls initially released and you could place chips on up to 9 cards.  Perhaps the most bingo like of these games, it’s no longer available to play in the UK.

Deal or No Deal The Big Draw – Playtech

Not to be confused with the Evolution Deal Or No Deal game, Deal Or No Deal The Big Draw includes a bingo style feature as a “Mini Draw” side game. If you’ve bet on the main draw, you can also bet on 4, 8, 12 or 20 of the 3×3 bingo cards; there are 60 balls of which 20 are released.

Monopoly Big Baller – Evolution

Monopoly Big Baller uses 60 balls and the same 5×5 cards as Mega Ball but cranks up the entertainment value as it’s packed with bonus features.  You can place chips on any or all of the 4 cards and/or on either or both of the bonus rounds (which are specific combos of 3 and 4 numbers, as in lotto).  You can choose for each card whether to have the centre space free or whether to have an extra multiplier applied.  Mr Monopoly also daubs some of your squares and/or adds multipliers before the game starts.  The bonus rounds, if triggered, play out on a giant Monopoly board.

Mega Fire Blaze Lucky Ball – Playtech

In Mega Fire Blaze Lucky Ball there are 60 balls, 20 of which are released.  This game has elements of both bingo and lottery.  The tickets are 4×4 with no number placement rules and you can place chips on up to 8 tickets per game.  You can also place chips on any or all of the three bonus combos.  Major has three numbers and a prize of up to 120x stake, whereas Grand and Mega have four numbers and a prize of up to 700x and 2500x stake respectively.

Crazy Balls – Evolution

Crazy Balls is another game (and arguably the best yet) with the popular format of 5×5 cards, 60 balls and a release of 20 balls.  You can place chips on up to 4 cards and/or up to 4 bonus rounds. As in Monopoly Big Baller, cards can have either the centre square free of an extra multiplier and some squares and bonus round numbers are randomly daubed and multipliers added before the balls start to be released.

The Future of Video Bingo & Game Show Bingo in the UK

While classic video bingo games have never gained much of a foothold in the UK and are even less likely to do so now because of the potential issue with extra balls and stake limits, the likes of Mega Ball are becoming increasingly popular.

• Operators like Mega Ball and its friends and relatives because they can deliver a bingo like experience to players without having to worry about liquidity
• Players like Mega Ball and its friends and relatives because these games feel very much like multiplayer bingo while having a Return To Player that is significantly better than that of most multiplayer bingo games.  And currently, stake limits don’t apply to these games.

There’s just one snag with this type of game and that is the ban on autoplay for UK players.  In force for slot games for some years, it was extended to almost all online gambling games in January 2025.

When playing a slot game you can take as long as you like before hitting the spin button again without missing anything, but in a game show you typically only have 15 seconds between games in which to place your bets and if you don’t, you miss the next game – so you need to pay attention so as not to miss that window!  Most game shows have a Bet On All button and or a Repeat Previous Bet button which makes it a bit easier as you don’t need to place multiple chips.

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