How to Play 80 Ball Bingo Online
80 Ball Bingo is a variation of the 75-Ball Bingo game popular throughout North America. The game is played under the title 80 Ball Bingo, or Shutter Board Bingo, at both live and online bingo halls. It is not as popular is it’s 75 Ball and 90 Ball cousins, but it does hold a certain charm for some bingo fans.
Although 80 Ball Bingo consists of more numbers than it’s closely related 75 Ball format, it actually has a smaller playing card. Instead of a 5×5 grid, players purchase cards with a 4×4 grid of numbers. In a live game, the design of the card gives it the common label Shutter Board bingo because players do not mark of the numbers with a dauber, but instead pull a shutter closed over each number called.
The four columns on each 80 Ball Bingo card may consist of four random numbers selected from a group of twenty. The first column may contain numbers of 1-20, the second column 21-40, third column 41-60 and the last column 61-80.
Because the cards are smaller, the object of the game is to close all 16 shutters on the 80 Ball Bingo card. A shutter may only be closed if its corresponding number has been called. In a live bingo game, all 80 numbered balls are held in a spinning cage that releases one ball at a time. A bingo caller will take each released ball and hold it up to visually and verbally reveal its number to the group of participating players. If the number called appears on any of the players’ bingo cards, the shutter is to be pulled down and closed by the player.
The first player close all 16 shutters on their bingo card wins the game, and whatever prize was set forth. In the case of two or more players closing their final shutter on the same called number, the prize will typically be split between all winning card holders.
How to Play 80 Ball Bingo Online
Online bingo games are played in the same fashion as the traditional live game. The only difference is the way the software automatically progresses each game. Players do not need to play attention and mark their cards as each number is called. Their virtual shutters are automatically closed with each number revealed. Thus a player cannot accidentally close the wrong shutter, or miss a number that should have been marked. Even if a player choses to do their own number marking, the software instantly and correctly declares all winning bingo cards.