Bingo Odds and Probabilities

What is the mathematical probability of any given player winning a game of bingo? The majority of both traditional and online bingo players would simply shrug at such a question, often believing that the odds of winning are incalculable or, if they could be calculated, far too complex for the average bingo player to be concerned with.

The truth is that a bingo player can calculate their chance of winning with relative ease, but only in a broadly theoretical sense, because to calculate specific probabilities you need two pieces of information:

1. You need to know the number of cards you are playing in the game.
2. You need to know the number of bingo cards in play in total.

The first piece of information is very easy to identify – if you have bought five bingo cards then you know you are playing five cards in the game. The second piece of information is not nearly as easy to identify, but if you could identify the total number of bingo cards in play you could calculate your chances of winning as follows: your chance of winning is equal to the number of cards you are playing divided by the number of cards in play, multiplied by 100. The result is your chance of winning the bingo game expressed as a percentage.

For example, if you have bought 5 bingo cards and you have identified that there are 400 bingo cards in play, you would calculate 5 divided by 400 multiplied by 100 = 1.25%. If you have bough 10 bingo cards and there are only 100 cards in play, your chance of winning would be 10 divided by 100 multiplied by 100 = 10%.

Although it isn’t practical to calculate specific odds in every bingo game you play, an understanding of the above formula will help you realise how both the number of cards you play and the number of other players involved in the game affect your chances of winning: The more bingo cards you play, and the less cards your opponents play, the more chance you have of winning.

So what can one do with this information? Well, it would not be beyond the ability of any player to adopt two rules of thumb:

• When choosing between bingo sites, choose the one with the smallest number of players. Chat in these rooms will be quieter, but there will be fewer cards in play, all other things being equal.
• Always play as many tickets as you can reasonably afford. Playing 10 tickets for 10 games would be better than playing 5 tickets for 20 games, assuming that you are playing to win and not simply to pass the time in an enjoyable way.

Last Updated: 08/02/2008 11:21:08