Pretty well every Christmas, Virtue Fusion run an escalator jackpot promotion in several of their network bingo rooms, and 2020 is no exception.
What’s an escalator jackpot?
An escalator jackpot is a way of turning a bingo progressive jackpot into a must-drop jackpot.
A bingo progressive jackpot drops when someone wins full house within a certain number of calls and the number is normally set to something pretty unlikely to ensure that the jackpot very rarely drops. For example, the progressive jackpot in the Virtue Fusion network 90 ball room is normally set to 33 calls; the chance per ticket of winning that is 1 in 44.1 million or roughly on a par with the chances of winning the jackpot in the National Lottery.
In an escalator jackpot, the number of calls within which bingo must be won goes up in steps, at predefined intervals (which is why it’s called an escalator). It could be every hour, or once a day at midnight for example. This continues until the jackpot is won and the promotion ends. It’s then reseeded and the ball count returns to its regular level.
How do the Virtue Fusion escalator jackpots work?
The Virtue Fusion escalator jackpots play in a different bingo room each day and the ball count starts to go up at 6pm. It then goes up by 2 per hour and if the jackpot hasn’t been won as midnight approaches, the ball count goes to 90 for the last game before midnight and it drops then. Each jackpot is a community jackpot, split 50/50 between the full house winner and all tickets in play in the game where it drops.
Where and when are they playing and how much can I win?
Virtue Fusion have been running escalator jackpots in a different bingo room every day since 18th December and will do so until Christmas Day but the amounts involved are quite small. From 26th December 2020 until 4th January 2021, the action moves to the network 90 ball room (which has different names at different sites but is easily identifiable because it has by far the most players) and the Deal Or No Deal 90 room. Each jackpot is a minimum of £50,000 – £25,000 for the FH winner and £25,000 split between the rest of the tickets in play – and the size of the community payout per ticket depends on the number of tickets in play (e.g. with 50,000 tickets in play each ticket would collect 50p).
Date |
Bingo Room |
Ball Count |
Ticket Prices |
26th December |
Network 90 |
Normally 33, starts at 35 at 6pm, goes up by 2 per hour |
10p – 50p |
27th December |
DOND 90 |
Normally 34, starts at 36 at 6pm, goes up by 2 per hour |
20p – 50p |
28th December |
Network 90 |
Normally 33, starts at 35 at 6pm, goes up by 2 per hour |
10p – 20p |
29th December |
Network 90 |
Normally 33, starts at 35 at 6pm, goes up by 2 per hour |
1p – 5p |
30th December |
DOND 90 |
Normally 34, starts at 36 at 6pm, goes up by 2 per hour |
20p – 50p |
31st December |
Network 90 |
Normally 33, starts at 35 at 6pm, goes up by 2 per hour |
1p – 5p |
1st January |
DOND 90 |
Normally 34, starts at 36 at 6pm, goes up by 2 per hour |
20p – 50p |
2nd January |
Network 90 |
Normally 33, starts at 35 at 6pm, goes up by 2 per hour |
10p – 50p |
3rd January |
DOND 90 |
Normally 34, starts at 36 at 6pm, goes up by 2 per hour |
20p – 50p |
4th January |
Network 90 |
Normally 33, starts at 35 at 6pm, goes up by 2 per hour |
10p – 20p |
In previous years when this promotion has run, the network 90 jackpot has typically dropped at some time during the evening, occasionally even before 9pm, and this is especially likely to happen this time round on 29th and 31st December when ticket prices are lower as there’ll be very large numbers of tickets in play. The DOND 90 jackpot has sometimes still been in play after 11pm and if that happens with any of these escalators, that’s about as exciting an hour of bingo as you’ll ever find.
Which bingo sites can I play at?
All Virtue Fusion bingo sites have these escalator jackpots as they are running in two widely networked bingo rooms. Enjoy!