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Is playing Online Bingo better
than
playing the lottery? |
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At first glance this might seem to
be a strange question. It would seem that bingo and lotteries are two different
gambling games that don't have much to do with each other. But this not the
case. And many the of the big national lottery organisations offer bingo in the
form of scratchcards though it's not legal to do the opposite, bingo sites
offering lotteries.
In truth the games are similar in that they both
rely on numbered balls being selected randomly to produce a set of numbers that
players have to match in order to win, whether this is on a lottery ticket or a
bingo card. The difference is that in bingo you also buy cards that have
randomly assigned
numbers as well. Indeed, the United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) is
so unwilling to make a definition of what the exact definition of bingo is,
that they are sticking with the 1978 Royal Commission report findings that,
“Bingo is a lottery played as a game”.
Not saying what bingo
is leads to confusion amongst the game operators but they have helped out a
bit. Bingo has three solid principles that must be adhered to:
- its played as an equal chance game i.e. its not a
casino game
- the player has to participate in order for the game
to work
- it must be clear to all players how the game comes
to an end
In the UKGC definition of
lotteries it has basically the same criteria but with different wording. The
possible exception is that a lottery may have no winners but in practice that
does not happen. So Bingo is a type of lottery. And in both cases you need a
license to operate one unless they are small and with a limited selection of
people playing, like at work or for a charity.
Whats Better In Bingo
Jackpots
This is where the
differences between the two show up the most. When you
play bingo you know that whatever the
top prize is, it is going to be won and that you have a realistic chance of
winning it. The exact opposite is the case with lotteries, especially the UK
National Lottery where over 85% of the time the jackpot is not won, you have
almost zero chance of winning it and on the fifth rollover its likely to be
passed down to other winning combinations and amount to much smaller dividends.
Of course there is a difference in scale in the top prize but there will be
another bingo jackpot available immediately after one has been
won.
Chances Of
Winning
Following on from jackpots definitely being won is the
actual odds you are up against. You can
control the odds of being able to pick a jackpot or any bingo
prize by choosing which bingo game to play. You can choose from a wide range of
games that have different numbers of participants, fewer means more chance,
more means lower chance but bigger prizes compared to the cost of playing.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents rates your chance of
being hit by lighting in one year at 1 in one million. If you play the lottery
once a week for a year your chances of
winning the jackpot is almost exactly the same over the course of that
year. Each ticket has the chance of winning the big one 50 times less than
being struck down by the gods.
Return Of Money
People playing the lottery
generally know that they are not seeing much or any of their money coming back.
Half of their ticket price is taken and given to good causes and half the
remaining money is tied up in the jackpot prize which they are extremely
unlikely to win. So that leaves little for the prizes you do have a chance of
winning meaning those payouts are really small compared to how difficult they
are to win. Sure in bingo you know some money is taken out of the prize fund so
that the operator can make a profit, but most of it is returned the
players.
Bingo is
Hip
If the Guardian Newspaper thinks that bingo is hip then the
world really has taken the game away from its old image. This is not a surprise
though as bingo is one of the few gambling games where you are actively
encouraged to converse with other players in your game. In fact its a vital
part of it, communities of like mined people getting to chat online and in the
real world whilst they dab away or tick off numbers on their
online card.
Its gambling with a soul which is better than simply buying an anonymous
lottery ticket.
Gamble
Wisely
As always we advise keep to sensible amounts of money that
you easily afford when choosing to gamble on anything. |
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