Believe it or not, online bingo has become one of the world’s most popular gambling games. From humble beginnings, this chance-based game now ranks among the crème da la crème of casino games, with big online bingo prizes to match. Gone are the days where bingo was a fuddy-duddy game. Enter the age of jazzed-up online bingo with all the bells and whistles to boot.

From 75 ball, to 80 ball, to 90 ball bingo, the online bingo prizes have only gotten bigger over the years. Increasing numbers of players are turning to bingo, fuelling its incredible jackpot potential. There are many different types of online bingo prizes that players can win. These range from free bingo tickets to super-sized jackpots.

Online bingo’s prize potential includes a combination of different jackpots. The more players competing in real money bingo games, the bigger the online bingo prizes. The jackpots are particularly exciting, and include Mystery Jackpots, Fixed Jackpots, Sliding Jackpots, and Progressive Jackpots.

With Mystery Jackpots, the prize is announced just before the bingo game commences. Fixed Jackpots offer set prizes to players, with no limit on how many bingo calls are needed to complete winning combinations. Sliding Jackpots get smaller over time. With these jackpots, it’s best to bingo early on to win as much as possible.

Progressive Jackpots can grow pretty quickly, since every bingo ticket purchased is added to the Progressive Jackpot prize pool. The more the ticket costs, the bigger the Progressive Jackpot. A player can win the Progressive Jackpot if the bingo combination gets hit within a certain number of calls.

The Biggest Bingo Wins of All Time

You would be remiss for thinking that bingo wasn’t a serious online gambling game. A little number-crunching certainly puts paid to that notion. Over the years, many a multimillionaire has been crowned courtesy of bingo games. Surging popularity and rising jackpots prize pools have made online bingo the must-play attraction for players.

The Guinness Book of Records lists the biggest win on online bingo at £162,701 ($283,099) as at April 10, 2006, when UK player Jo Collins scooped up a mega-money win that the time. Much has changed in the years since, as multi-million pound payouts have routinely been won. Some of the many incredible bingo jackpots won over the years are listed below.

Thanks to progressive jackpots, bingo winners have scored monster-sized payouts. The proof of the pudding is in the winnings!

  • John Orchard – a factory worker by trade, John Orchard decided to wager 30p at an online bingo room back in 2012. Not only did he collect a monster-sized payout valued at £5,883,044.43, but he put that money to good use by purchasing a snazzy Jaguar XF, and bought his mates and relatives a new house in Lincolnshire. Fast forward to 2021, John Orchard is 70 years old and living large.
  • Lisa Potter – Lucky Lisa is a bingo player from Witney, Oxfordshire. She instantly took to the world’s most social game because her boyfriend spent too much time watching football on the TV. As it turned out, she won an incredible £1.3 million at the tender age of just 33, back in 2012. All it took to nab the jackpot payout was a cool £5 bet. Like so many other lucky bingo winners, she decided to purchase a brand-new house, travel the world, and live it up. The rest is history.
  • Georgios M – a legendary Greek online bingo player remains as enigmatic and elusive as ever. Little is known about this reclusive multimillionaire, suffice it to say he won a fortune valued at £5.1 million playing online bingo when he was only 36 years old, in 2009. His win was commensurate with that of John Orchard several years later. Now that Georgios M is 48 years of age, he’s definitely living like a boss. In the years since his massive win, he remains elusive, preferring anonymity to the public eye.
  • Christine Bradfield – 2012 was a fantastic year for winning mega-money bingo jackpots. It was quite fortuitous for Christine Bradfield too. She scooped up £1.1 million and shared it 50-50 with her sister-in-law, Lorraine Williams. In total, she spent £16 on the bingo tickets to the dismay of a husband. He was none too impressed at the time, but after she won, he heaped praise upon her for her incredible good fortune.

The Welsh lady and her husband set their sights on spoiling their grandchildren and taking luxury vacations. While it wasn’t an online bingo game, it was a big win for bingo aficionados everywhere. At the time of her win, Bradfield had this to say, ‘I feel totally overwhelmed and shocked. All together we only spent £16 for all the bingo tickets on the night… I couldn’t believe it when they told me.’

  • Soraya Lowell – the year was 2008, and it was a good one for Soraya Lowell. She scooped up a £1.2 million bingo jackpot in a record-shattering payday at the time. Unfortunately, her financial fortunes took a turn for the worse after she was declared bankrupt over unpaid council taxes in 2012. It turns out that this lucky player wasn’t so lucky with the Lanarkshire Council, after owing them £13,214 in back taxes.

The Bank of Scotland seized her home valued at £150,000, after she fell behind with her mortgage payments. Since Lowell split her prize money with her neighbour Agnes O’Neill, it amounted to around £600,000 apiece. Within months of gifting her neighbour the prize, the neighbour passed away. Then Lowell and her husband divorced, and everything went to pieces.

Incidentally, the Guinness Book of Records also lists the largest online bingo game ever to take place comprising 493,824 people, with Coca-Cola Japan, in Tokyo. The online bingo game was held on September 3, 2010, with plenty of prizes, cash and kind being paid out to lucky players. An estimated 3M players across the United Kingdom enjoy playing bingo games online. This large and growing number is testament to the interactive appeal of online bingo games. Players from Britain bank the biggest bingo prizes, for good reason.

Effective Online Bingo Strategies for Winning Real Money

  • Pick a reputable online bingo room with regularly scheduled bingo games.
  • Be sure to play online bingo games with Mystery Jackpots, Fixed Jackpots, Sliding Jackpots, or Progressive Jackpots.
  • Play online bingo when player numbers are at a minimum. This is usually during weekdays in the mornings. Avoid evenings, as that’s when most bingo players are at home after work playing bingo online. Saturdays and Sundays are the busiest times for online bingo rooms – avoid them.
  • Be sure to play as many cost-effective online bingo cards as possible without breaking the bank. It’s important to balance your budget vis-a-vis bingo card costs versus the expected payoff for winning an online bingo game. The risk/reward ratio should be beneficial to you.
  • Always maximise use of bingo bonuses and promotional offers. These are the game changers when it comes to boosting your chances of winning real money prizes. Bingo offers include no deposit bonuses, match deposit bonuses, and free bingo games online. Penny Bingo games are also fantastic low-cost options with rewarding payouts up for grabs.
  • Buy One Get One Free (BOGOF) bingo games are plenty popular too. These are routinely offered by online bingo rooms as an enticement to players. When you find BOGOF offers, it’s like being gifted free bingo cards. These types of offers are routinely available in different formats. Sometimes you will be required to buy 3, 6, or 12 bingo cards. In exchange for buying online bingo cards, you may be gifted Free Bingo Cards.
  • Nowadays, online bingo rooms present players with auto-daubing functionality as standard. However, there are still many players who prefer to manually daub called bingo numbers. If you are playing multiple bingo cards simultaneously, always opt for auto daub functionality to ensure that you never miss a called bingo number.
  • Try to select bingo cards with non-repeating numbers. That way, you get to maximise your potential benefit from the full quota of cards that you are playing.
  • Play 90 ball bingo games where you get to win prizes for 1 lines, 2 lines, and a Full House. By the same token, you may want to try your luck with 1 to go (1TG) or 2 to go bingo (2TG) games. These games provide multiple winning opportunities to players, even if you don’t bingo in that round. You can still cash out as a winner with 1 to go or 2 to go.

Is Online Bingo about Strategy or Good Fortune?

Online bingo games rely on sophisticated randomising software known as RNGs. These random number generators allow for chance-based outcomes for the specific bingo games that you are playing. In 75 ball bingo, the RNGs ensure random calls for numbers 1-75. In 80 ball bingo, there are random calls for numbers 1-80, and in 90 ball bingo there are random calls from numbers 1-90. Once a number has been called, it can no longer come up during that specific online bingo game.

Mathematicians have found that there are clear probabilities of being able to complete a winning bingo card within a set number of calls. For example, there is a 50% chance of completing a bingo card in 41 calls, and a 90% chance of completing a bingo card in 54 calls according to researchers.

Since bingo games include multiple cards, the analysis gets much more complicated. According to the numbers, if there is a bingo game with 100+ cards, there is approximately 0% chance that the game will take more than 30 numbers to produce a bingo. Researchers found that with a minimum of 10 cards in play, you will invariably have a bingo by the 50th number.

There are definite strategies that players can implement to increase their winning chances in bingo games. These largely relate to the number of players participating at any given time, the number of cards in play, and your ability to select bingo cards without repeating numbers. If you’re playing progressive jackpot bingo games and you notice a large number of players participating, your chances of winning may decrease, but the potential jackpot is much bigger too.

If multiple numbers have been called and no one has a bingo yet, the likelihood of hitting numbers remaining on your card increases with every number called. Since there are a finite amount of bingo numbers, you can rest assured that the probability of your numbers coming up on every subsequent call is actually increasing. The flipside of the coin is that anyone else still playing online bingo is enjoying the same benefit.

Since bingo is a numbers game, and it is based on chance you stand the best chance when you play more bingo games. This strategy may result in winnings, but it’s always a good idea to take the cost considerations into account. By implementing these bingo strategies, you will enhance the quality of your gaming sessions, and potentially position yourself for success as a bingo winner.

Summary: Winning Money Playing Bingo Online

Pick a reputable online bingo room with a proven track record of paying out winners. Look out for the cash games and jackpot games – those are the best online bingo games to play. Login to play real money bingo when there are few players competing for cash prizes. That increases your chances of winning, since bingo is a numbers game. Play more bingo cards than other players to boost your chances of winning bingo cash prizes. The golden rule is to play as many bingo cards as you can afford without breaking the bank. Maximise your bingo bonuses and promotional offers to increase your chances of winning.