Every game has terms and phrases that a person should know in order to be good at it. For instance, I was watching poker the other and one guy was calling another guy out for making a squeeze play. And I thought to myself, “squeeze play? What’s that?” But the television show defined the term shortly thereafter.
I’m familiar with the game of poker but clearly not all the terms. Perhaps knowing what a squeeze play was made that particular player’s game better.
The same can be said of knowledge of bingo terms, the more you know the better you may be; here is a short list of terms or phrases you might encounter while playing bingo.
Admission
Bingo halls will have a person buy a set of cards, 3-6 of them called an admission packet, before the start of the game. The cards are generally regular bingo cards but can vary from hall to hall.
Bingo
As well as being the name of the game at hand, it is also the term shouted when you’ve matched a pattern on your card. For instance, a typical row pattern may consist of all the top number in each column (B, I, N, G, and O). If you marked them all, and that’s the pattern designated for that bingo game, you’d shout, “BINGO!”
Caller
A machine will usually randomly pick numbers and letters but a human will call out those numbers to the players.
Diagonal Pattern
Instead of a column straight up and down, or a row from left to right, a diagonal pattern is made by connecting 5 number/letter combos diagonally across the playing board.
Electronic Bingo
Bingo played via use of an electronic device. The device can be a computer, laptop, or a similar hand held device with the function of playing bingo.
Face
A single bingo sheet that contains a free space and 24 numbers.
Jackpot
The jackpot is generally the biggest prize for any bingo game. Sometimes the jackpots are progressive – they grow each time there isn’t a winner.
Money Ball
The money ball is a number chosen prior to the start of the game that, if a person gets, will mean a chance at a special prize.
