So having learned the basics of Live/land-based bingo, and the differences between 75 and 90 number Bingo, let’s move to online Bingo.

To play Bingo online is little different to playing Bingo live in a Hall, marquee, fairground, or wherever. The computer you're using to read this article is more than likely to be sufficient to handle the games software online Bingo sites use to run their games, and all the best UK online Bingo sites will have their own guides to explain how you download and use their software. They will also explain how money transactions are carried out; mainly buying cards and receiving Bingo winnings.

The generally accepted process for choosing an Online Bingo site is:
a)    Decide first and foremost what you want to use the site for- is it to play Bingo, play other games, such as slots, chat in the chat rooms, or a combination of these?
b)    Visually, does the site appeal to you. Is it too busy or too austere for your tastes? This is important as you’ll likely to be looking at the screens of your chosen Bingo provider for some time!
c)    Does it cater for your financial outlay, modest or extravagant, and are the potential winnings what you’re expecting?
d)    Check reviews to ensure people have had good experiences there, and then
e)    Find one which has good joining offers, such as free games to allow you to get used to the site, along with extra contributions to your account once you make a payment.

Once you’ve found one you want to sign up to, you can register as a member at their website, which will also open a secure, password protected account through which you can deposit money and into which winnings will be paid. All reputable operators will offer a variety of ways in which you can carry out real money transactions often covering the major credit and debit cards as well as popular online payment methods.

As mentioned in e) above, a popular incentive used by many online Bingo sites, and one we'd recommend looking out for, is free games, or free credits of cash for simply signing up as a new player. This is a great opportunity to try out a few sessions to get the feel of playing online and experiencing the community facilities and other attractions on offer.  And remember just because you’ve joined one site, doesn’t mean you can’t join others or leave ones that you are no longer happy with. It’s your money, your game, and your fun at stake, so keep asking yourself questions to make sure you’re getting the maximum out of your online Bingo.

Common Online Bingo Features include auto-daubing a user option that automatically marks off called numbers that appear on your cards. This is very handy if you've purchased a large number of tickets for a session, as this can get tricky to manage! The online Bingo software keeps tabs on all the cards in play and a win is automatically claimed for a user. This does remove the skill of daubing from the online game, but having missed one or two Bingo wins at Live Bingo venues because I’ve been distracted, or been “tired and emotional” (tipsy!), it’s a good failsafe.

There’s also Best Card Sorting, which is a player aid common to most online Bingo software. Best Card Sorting is a user-selected option that will order your on-screen purchased cards during a game so that you can quickly see your cards with the most numbers marked off.

Finally there are Progressive Jackpots. These have proved to be very popular with players of online Bingo over recent years, since they hold out the chance to play for very large pots of prize money but without high card prices. Where an online Bingo hall runs a Progressive Jackpot game, that site adds a percentage of all its ticket sales from its daily sessions into a single prize fund, the current value of which is usually advertised within the site’s Lobby area and other Bingo scheduled sessions. This mechanism means the Jackpot figure can escalate to very nice sums indeed, especially if the site is a busy one. The Progressive Jackpot can only be played for during certain sessions and typically can only be claimed by achieving a certain pattern or full house within a certain number of calls.

So, I think you’re ready now to go out into Bingoland! Enjoy and good luck!