Bingo
When we learned to play the game of Bingo as children, we were not very competitive, but we did have a lot of fun with friends. Bingo game basics were learned first, and the rules were first on the agenda. Children learned about the ball holder, the card marker, and most importantly the Bingo card. The five column Bingo card featured large letters that spelled out B, I, N, G, O across the top, and large numerals were below each letter.
Back then, the Bingo cards were large and cumbersome and were made out of called. Some parents made these Bingo cards from their personal computers, and gave the children colored candies to mark off their numbers. If the games were played at a birthday party, then a favor would be given to the winner.
In Bingo games, there will be a person assigned the role as the caller. Before each game begins, two things will occur. Players will purchase their Bingo cards in any number that they are comfortable with. Then the caller will assign which type of Bingo game is being played. They will also announce to the Bingo crowd what the prize is for the game. This can be a simple straight bingo, where five numbers must line up, up, down, or diagonally, and sometimes they required four corners of the card to be covered too.
There are several ways this prize is determined. It can be the total revenue received from all sales of cards for each Bingo game, it can be a percentage of the sales, with the host taking 10 percent to pay for building and stock expenses, or each game will have a set money prize that will typically be published on a game list and given to each player as they purchase their Bingo card packages.
The caller would then methodically call Bingo numbers that have been stored in a bingo baskets that has a crank on it. With each crank of the hand, a ball would fall through a hole in a ball basket, and into the hand of the caller. They will announce this number to the Bingo game players and then place the called number on a pre-numbered board.
As each number is called, Bingo players will cover the number with a mark. This could be wooden circles, pieces of paper, or if the card is paper, the number could be crossed off with colored ink contained in a Bingo marker. The first person to cover all of the required numbers is the winner of the game, and they yell out Bingo to let everyone know. If there are multiple winners, the prize is split among them equally.
by Melissa.Brown 19 years ago