Although the fundamentals of the game of bingo are the same in both the United Kingdom and the United States of America, there are a number of key differences in how the game is played.

The biggest difference between bingo in the two countries is the equipment which is used to play the game. While bingo cards in the United Kingdom have twenty seven squares of numbers, with three rows and nine columns, American bingo cards have twenty five squares set in a five by five grid. There are fewer free spaces on American bingo cards too, as traditionally only the centre square is given as a ‘free space’ while on each row of nine squares on a British bingo cards there are five numbers and four blank spaces.

There are also differences in the amount of numbers used in the game, with British bingo using a pool of 90 numbers while American bingo has a lower amount of 75.

The bingo games are also slightly different when playing in the United States, as there are often more variations thrown in to the mix to make games more exciting. These include the use of ‘wild numbers’, which allow a player to strike off a certain number of squares based on the first number drawn, and playing multiple games using the same cards.

Another noticeable difference between the two styles of bingo is the lack of nicknames for the numbers drawn in American bingo.