New Hot House Bingo Game At Gala Bingo

Hot House Bingo is Gala Bingo’s brand new 90 ball bingo game, but unlike other 90 ball bingo variants which just have a feature game tagged on the end, this is 90 ball bingo as you’ve NEVER seen it before!

• Players have three tickets each.   These have 15 numbers each just like a regular 90 ball ticket but look a little different.
• All 90 balls are called and all tickets are played until the end.
• Each game has 5 prize bands (for different numbers of calls to bingo) each with its own prize pool (but two of them are set to zero).
• When a player completes a card they win a share of the prize pool for the band in which they finished. If no-one wins in a band the pool is split between the remaining winning bands, but the only band in which it seems at all likely this could happen is the red band where, in a room with around 100 players, there were typically 1-5 winners (as you’d expect given that the chance a single ticket has of being completed in 68 or fewer calls is a shade under 1%).
• At launch, the bands are set up like this:
  • Red band – 40% of total prize pool – bingo in up to 68 calls
  • Purple band – no win – bingo in between red and green
  • Green band –  50% of total prize pool – 3 or 4 consecutive numbers somewhere between 69 and 89
  • Orange band – no win – bingo in between green and blue
  • Blue band – 10% of total prize pool – bingo in the full 90 calls

The bands and the percentages are subject to change – Gala are actively asking for player feedback and may make some tweaks, but player reaction on the whole seems pretty positive.

The tickets are a strip with no duplicated numbers so contain 45 of the 90 numbers.  What this means is that every player has a 50/50 chance of having a ticket including the last number and therefore winning part of the blue pool (a few pence, but at least it’s something) – and because of this, the game holds everyone’s attention right up until the last few calls.

Another very interesting thing about Hot House Bingo is that the number of players in the room has no bearing on each individual player’s chance of winning anything (even if the red pot gets redistributed when no-one completes bingo in 68 calls which is more likely to happen when the room is quieter, the extra money is added to the green and blue prizes only).  The number of players does affect how many other players a winner may have to share the pot with – but it also increases the size of the pot.

It’s certainly different – and pretty exciting, especially if you have 1TG in the purple or green bands!

Update – until 4th November, Gala have changed the bands and the prize distribution in Hot House Bingo so that every ticket is guaranteed to win something.  The red band remains at 40% of the prize pool for bingo in 68 or fewer calls but the others move around.  In some games the bands are as they were at launch but with the green prize reduced to 30% and 10% given to both purple and orange, and in other games the later bands are rearranged as 69-71, 72-79, 80 and 81-90.

With the new arrangement, although everyone is guaranteed to win something it’s unlikely to be more than a few pence unless you win a share of the red band.  We would be surprised if this is the last of the changes.