The excitement of a game that offers chances to win cash prizes combined with a friendly and sociable environment have made bingo one of the top leisure pursuits in the UK, with people across the country looking forward to a night out at the bingo hall with friends. But, despite the welcoming atmosphere and emphasis on friendly participation, some people still find that they are intimidated by the thought of venturing into a new environment to try out a game that they are unfamiliar with.

This is where online bingo on internet bingo sites comes into its own.

Choosing to play bingo on one of the many online bingo sites allows newcomers to the game to learn the ropes at their own pace, without that uncomfortable feeling of being watched over and judged by the experts.

Online bingo sites offer the amateur player a safe and comfortable place in which to make their first forays into the world of bingo. From the comfort of their own couch, online bingo players can choose from one of the many bingo sites available, offering a range of games with something to suit all tastes and budgets.

New players will also benefit from joining bonuses with many of the online bingo sites including free bingo games, deposit matching and more.

Many bingo sites will also offer other games including slots and scratch cards, helping users to enjoy a diverse online gambling experience.

The most common kind of free bets offered by online betting websites are sign up bonuses, where players are offered huge bonuses for signing up to a new online gambling site and depositing money into their accounts. These sign up bonus free bets are usually either paid out as a percentage of an initial deposit or as a fixed sum based on how much a new player puts into their account. However, these free bets cannot instantly be withdrawn as money and often need to be wagered, sometimes several times over, before they turn into ‘real’ money.

Many UK gambling websites also offer customers access to loyalty programmes. These programmes grant players points based on how much money they’ve wagered on an online betting website. Once a player has accumulated enough points, they are generally granted free bets and allowed to keep the winnings once they’ve been wagered.

Online poker services, along with running comprehensive sign up bonuses and loyalty programmes, often offer their customers free bets in the way of free entry to poker tournaments. This leaves a player eligible to try to play for cash prizes without needing to lay down the money to buy in themselves.

High up there is Virgin Casino, a simple and straightforward website that allows you to register and play immediately.  There may be some rare instances when you are asked to provide some form of identification, but this can easily be done by email, fax or post.  The 100+ games available on this site are entertaining and of high quality; you’ll never feel cheated here.

Another good online casino is William Hill, where you have the choice of downloading software in order to play all the games, or just playing via your browser where you can pick one of over 40 games to play.  Customer Service is excellent and you can win up to £10,000 a month, depending on your stakes and level of play.

Another traditional bookmaker, Ladbrokes, is in amongst the top online casinos.  A huge name in the business, Ladbrokes employs approximately 14,000 people throughout five countries to provide the support and service to its two million global members. Again you can play instantly or choose to download and have access to over 350 games, all with superb graphic and audio quality. There are ongoing promotions for new and existing members.

Other sites to check out are VC Casino, Littlewoods, Coral Casino and Lottery Casino.

One tip for players is not to be distracted by what else is going on in the venue, such as offered refreshments. Some venues even sell alcoholic beverages, and trying to keep track of all your cards and all the numbers being read out by the caller whilst under the influence of alcohol is a sure fire way to miss out on a bingo win.

Another tip is to not be afraid to speak to the caller if you feel there is a problem with their calling. There is no need to be rude, but if you feel they are not speaking loudly enough or rushing through the calling of the numbers too quickly, you do have the right to make your feelings known, and others may well be in agreement with you.

Getting some exercise before the game can help keep your concentration sharp. There is no need to be silly about it, but an agile body does often equals an agile mind. If nothing else, if you are planning on becoming a bingo regular, exercise will help your physique should you indulge (as so many do) in all those tempting snacks that are often offered during matches!

You will immediately see from the homepage that there are distinct sections of the site you can visit.  For example if you want to place a bet or get the latest odds on a particular sport, you can visit the sport section.  Alternatively if you want to have a go at their version of online bingo, look out for the specific link to that section instead.

William Hill also has various games to try out, not to mention their online casino which is packed with casino and table games as well.  They certainly cater for a lot of different punters, and when it comes to welcoming offers they have plenty of these as well.  For instance, the online casino can provide you with as much as £150 as a welcome bonus, although it depends on how much you open your account with as to how much you will receive.

William Hill sometimes has other bonuses and offers as well, so make sure you keep an eye out for these if you have an account with them.  They can add that extra degree of excitement to your time with them, and they might just tip the balance in favour of you joining the site in the first place.

Hand odds are the chance of a particular card or set of cards coming up to make the best hand at the table. Pot odds is the ratio between the amount of money in the pot and how much money you need to put up to call an opponent’s bet.

Hand odds give you a good idea as to whether continuing with a hand is to your advantage; they are the odds you have of making a winning hand. For example if you hold two spades and there are two spades in the flop, the chances of making a flush are 2 to 1, which means that one in every three times you play you will make a flush. Odds of 3 to 1 will give you a winning hand roughly every four chances. The odds are calculated by figuring the number of outs (cards you need to complete your hand) against the number of cards left in play.

Pot odds
Pot odds tell you how many times you will have to play in order to win and break even. If there is £100 in the pot and your call is £10, you need to win 1:11 times to break even.

Calculating the two sets of odds together gives you the percentage chance of winning and an idea of how much of a risk continuing with a certain hand will be.

Would it surprise you to learn that playing bingo actually sharpens the mind? Recent studies show that online bingo can have a positive effect on brain development, and improve mental retention and capacity in those who play bingo. Bingo rates as high as doing crosswords puzzles to retain and sharpen mental acuity.

The tests, which ran over a lengthy period of time, showed that online bingo players had improved memory and better retention of brain functions than people who do not play bingo. Bingo players were able to keep both concentration and focus on tasks at hand, as well as completing the tasks earlier than the group who did not play bingo.

Researchers have long proven that mental exercises help keep the brain sharp and working at a maximum level. What they found about bingo is that a player is required to multitask: listening for the called numbers, watching the cards, concentrating on the patterns played, and chatting with nearby bingo contestants.

Granted there are other ways to keep your brain functioning at an optimal level, but why not have fun with it? Improve your mind while playing a great game of bingo online.

Every online casino site has the option to play online slots, and there are many versions to choose from. Some of these you may recognise from bars or real casinos. The basics are all the same – spin the reels and hope all the same symbols show on the winning line.

Each symbol has a different value depending on the machine being played, some have set monetary values and some are dependent on the bet being placed, for example twice, ten times and sometimes as much as 500 times the bet placed. If you are lucky enough to get those symbols in a row this could mean big cash prizes.

There are also the standard options to ‘nudge’ meaning you can move a wheel one space per nudge to try to get all the symbols to match, and ‘hold’ which is for when there is 2 of the 3 wheels showing the same symbol, you can hold them and just spin the one that is left in the hope it will stop on the matching symbol.

Slot machines can be highly addictive casino games; it is therefore wise to set spending limits or even time limits if the option is available, to ensure you do not overspend in the heat of the moment.

Online gambling companies try their hardest to make their virtual casinos mimic their real life counterparts as closely as possible, however nothing quite matches the experience of being sat in a social environment and playing with real chips rather than a computer mouse. One type of online gambling, though, can more closely mimic real life casino play than others – Live Dealer casinos.

Some online gambling websites use advanced webcam technology to allow players to play with a real dealer on a table with other players. Although players will still have to indicate their bets and click actions via their computer, they will have the advantage of being dealt real cards while playing blackjack or seeing the result of a real spin of a roulette wheel. Some players who are sceptical about the fairness of online gambling websites even prefer playing this way as they get to see the whole process of playing a hand.

Although the use of live dealers is traditionally only found in online casinos for games such as roulette and blackjack, other forms of online gambling are beginning to experiment with them. Online bingo halls, which pride themselves on the social aspects of their games, have begun using live dealers both via the internet and on late night television.

In the version of bingo that is played outside of the United States, the rules are as follows. A normal bingo ticket features twenty seven spaces, which are set out in three rows and nine columns. Each of the rows contains four empty spaces and five numbers, while each of the columns has one or two (possibly three on very rare occasions) numbers, with column one featuring numbers that range from one to nine, column two featuring numbers that range from ten to nineteen, the third column featuring numbers from twenty to twenty nine, and so on and so forth up until the final column, which features numbers from eighty up to and including ninety.

The game is run by a ‘caller’ who calls out numbers that are selected at random either by drawing them from a bag, or which are selected by some kind of device, be it balls in an automatic draw machine or by some other kind of tool for selecting random numbers. 

There are several different combinations on the ticket which signal a bingo win. One is five numbers in a horizontal line all having been selected by the caller, one covers two lines, while “Full House” indicates that all fifteen numbers on the player’s ticket have been called.