Paint By Numbers, A New Game At Tombola

What is Paint By Numbers?

Paint By Numbers is the latest new bingo game from Tombola, released at the start of July 2022 a mere six weeks after the release of Reel Bingo.  Before that, the seasonal specials Winter Spotlight and Bloom were around, both based on a 45 ball bingo engine and both on site for a just a few weeks, and we were expecting a summer themed version of the same game to come next.

So is Paint By Numbers that game?  It is and it isn’t.

• It is, because it’s based on the same 45 ball, 15 number engine as the other two games (but with only one prize, for full house, whereas the other games had a prize for a set of 4)
• It isn’t, because as far as we know it’s not time limited and is here to stay.

Next question!  Why have we illustrated a news item about a new bingo game with a picture of a burger and a hot dog?  The answer is that it’s all part of the game theming, as we shall see.

Like most of Tombola’s unique bingo games, Paint By Numbers is a single ticket, multi-stake game.  This allows players to choose how much to spend while making the game much easier to play on a phone screen because there’s only one ticket to keep track of.  Single ticket games are also much fairer for players because everyone has exactly the same chance of winning; the prizes are multiples of stake so at a higher stake level, you increase the size of the prize you could win rather than increase your chances of winning as you would do if you bought more tickets in a regular game.

How To Play Paint By Numbers

The first step is to choose your stake level – 10, 25p, 50p, £1 or £2.  Once chosen, it persists for the session so you won’t need to choose again unless you want to change it.  Press the buy button and then confirm (this two step procedure means you can’t buy into a game by accident).

While you’re waiting for the game to start, you’ll be presented with a dinky little doodling app to play with.  Your artwork stays in place for the whole gaming session unless you press the button to clear it and start again, so you can keep coming back to it in between games.

The game board for Paint By Numbers is just what you’d expect given the name of the game – a paint by numbers picture.  It’s not the same picture in every game either; there are at least 3 different ones, all based on food.

• Burger and hot dog
• Ice cream sundaes
• Drinks

As the numbers are called, they appear along the bottom of the play area, each associated with a colour.  Any areas on the game board that have that number are then filled in with that colour (sometimes with a pattern, texture or other extras e.g. ice in the drinks, sprinkles on the ice creams, sesame seeds on the burger bun).  You can colour in manually for extra fun but if you get behind, auto-daub will kick in so you don’t miss out.

To win, you need to colour in the whole picture.  Do it in 28 calls and as well as the full house prize, you’ll win the jackpot which is 500x stake.  If multiple players win a game in 28 calls the jackpot is not split between them – they each win 500x stake.

The RTP of Paint By Numbers is guaranteed to be more than 80%.  This is on a par with the rest of Tombola’s bingo games and very good for bingo games in general.

The game had been out for more than a week when we visited so some of the initial excitement had died down, but it was still attracting hundreds of players per game so at the moment the prizes are relatively high and the chance of winning low.  Nevertheless, it’s excellent entertainment value, particularly if you play at the lower stake levels.  Another winner from Tombola!