Bingo Terminology
A Brief Explanation
Bingo players use a terminology all their own. As with many gambling games, this terminology has succeeded in leaking out of the world of bingo and has affected the formulation of commonly used expressions. I thought it would be nice to collect a few bingo expressions and terms and define them so that if any novice players come along this little list will help them find their way in the game.
Winning (and Almost Winning) Terms:
Bingo: This is the name of the game (derived from beano). This is also what you call if you succeed in being the first player to obtain a winning pattern. Calling bingo as soon as you realize you win is important since in some halls the first to call will be the one who collects in the case of a tie.
Jumping the gun: This refers to calling bingo before an actual bingo has been achieved. Usually, this refers to an actual win that was called when the numbers appeared on the screen before they were called out by the caller.
Bongo: This refers to the instance when one calls out a win mistakenly because he thought he had a bingo. Other names for this situation are :"false alarm" and "social error".
Bonus Numbers:
Wild numbers: Some bingo halls allow players to begin the game with certain bonus numbers. These are termed "wild". The numbers are usually determined by the results of the first ball.
Standard: This refers to the standard wild number rule where the singles digit of the first ball is considered to be "wild" and all numbers which have that digit in their singles place are automatically marked off (a 42 would mean that 2 is wild and thus 12,22,32 etc. would all be marked off).
Forwards/Backwards: This method of selecting wild numbers means that all numbers with a tens digit that is identical to the wild number are marked off. In some casinos, this means that numbers which have a singles value which is greater than 6 might be disqualified since there are no numbers above 75.
