75 Ball Bingo or 90 Ball Bingo?

If you play bingo in traditional bingo halls then you are relying on a bingo machine to call numbers out and a caller to call these. The game is based on chance as the numbers are picked by the tambala at random; the machine usually uses a vacuum to suck balls as random while they spin around in the machine

Most people when they think of the origins of bingo think of the United States and believe the most modern version was created by a guy called Edwin Lowe, there is however different variations on this story and some people will beg to differ. No matter what you believe the modern game is played differently depending on your location in the world, some parts of the world favour a different style of bingo to the rest. If you live in the USA you are more likely to play 75 ball bingo, but the rest of the world favour the style 90 ball bingo.

Although these games are similar, each game does vary and the game does actually change depending on which style you are playing.


75 Ball Bingo

In 75 ball bingo there are a total of 75 balls that the machine uses and thus how the game got its name. Any ticket that is purchase will contain random numbers between 1 and 75 and each number is only printed once per ticket.

The tickets that are used consist of a 5 x 5 grid of numbers where each column or row is represented by a letter from the word BINGO. The card then has a blank square known as a free space. The card then only has 24 numbers on due to the free space.

The games can vary slightly but you usually have three styles: you either have to get all the 24 numbers to shout “BINGO”, get either a vertical, diagonal, or horizontal line of numbers, or you have a pattern that your winning numbers need to make, once your make this pattern you then win, regardless of not covering all 24 numbers.

90 Ball Bingo

In 90 ball bingo there are a total of 90 balls that the machine uses and again this is where the name came from. A ticket that is purchased is part of a strip of 6 tickets. One full strip consists of 3 rows and 9 columns; each numbers is printed on a full strip with empty squares between numbers.

Each ticket has 15 numbers and each column is in order of: 1-9, 10-19, 20-19 and so on up to 90. This layout is so numbers can be easily found on a single card or strip. If you are playing with a full strip you will need to mark every number as the strip contains every number, a single ticket only has 15 numbers so loads of called numbers will not appear on your card.

Usually there are 3 chances to win on this style of bingo. 1 line – Getting every number on a single line. 2 lines – Getting every number on 2 lines on a single ticket, not strip. Full House – Getting every number on a single ticket, again not a strip. Shouting “BINGO” if you are the first person to do any of the previous 3 will make you the winner.

What is The Difference?

Although both styles of game follow the same outline of a bingo machine, bingo caller and bingo cards, each game does slightly vary. Because of this some people will chose one variation of the game over the other one.

In 90 ball bingo you have three chances to win but the prize money gets split up into three pots, with 75 ball bingo you only get 1 chance to win but the pot is bigger in money and it is like combining all 3 of the 90 ball bingo pots.

As 90 ball bingo uses 90 balls and there are 3 chances to win, the game usually lasts longer than 75 ball bingo, because of this the game is favoured as you can usually play for longer as you do not waste as much money because games last longer.