The Bingo Spot

The Bingo Spot Game Review

After only a few years in operation, Pragmatic Play has decided to replace their bingo live game Vegas Ball Bonanza with a follow-up called The Bingo Spot. The glitzy game show atmosphere is still going strong, though, and the new studio looks similar to the old one. The biggest change is the removal of the Star Ball feature, and the fact that you can now play with up to 400 bingo tickets per round.

The live hosts are still charming and dressed for the part, keeping you company with light banter between the dutiful announcements of winning balls. You can place bets between €0.1 and €1,000 per bingo ticket, a bet range that’s even more solid than in the original game. As before, 9 balls are drawn from the 30-ball tumbler, and you win by completing horizontal or vertical lines on the 3x3-grid bingo ticket. Diagonal lines do not equal a bingo, just to be clear.

The Bingo Spot - Game Screen

The rounds are relatively fast, at least compared to some bingo games out there, and you only need to match 3 numbers on a line to yell “bingo!” in The Bingo Spot game. The auto-sort system keeps your most relevant tickets prominently displayed, making sure you always see the tickets that are closest to a win. This is especially relevant for high rollers who like to play with a lot of tickets in each round.

Before each round starts, 5 Lucky Numbers are drawn, and these are upgraded with a multiplier of up to x5 per number. Multiplier-boosted numbers that are part of a winning line add their multiplier to the ticket, and multiple multipliers are multiplied together to boost the total win for the ticket. A Wild Ball can add up to 4 extra balls to the round, and The Bingo Spot max win is 20,000x per card. The game’s RTP is 96.44%, which is a bit higher than the predecessor.

The Bingo Spot Features & How To Play

You start by deciding how many tickets you want to purchase for the upcoming round, and The Bingo Spot allows you to go into the round with up to 400 tickets simultaneously. Each ticket contains 9 random numbers on a 3x3 grid, and numbers are drawn from a 30-ball physical tumbler activated by the live game host. Once your stake and number of tickets have been set, you watch as 9 balls are drawn from the tumbler.

Lucky Numbers & Multipliers

The game draws 5 Lucky Numbers through an RNG process at the start of the round, and these 5 numbers are assigned with a multiplier ranging from x2 to x5. If a winning line includes at least one of these lucky numbers, it becomes the ticket multiplier. If more than one winning line contains a lucky number, the multipliers are multiplied together to become the ticket multiplier. For example, if you have 2 winning lines with an x5 multiplier in each, the ticket multiplier that boosts your total win is x25.

Wild Ball Bonus Wheel

Out of the 30 balls in the tumbler, exactly one ball is known as the Wild Ball. If the Wild Ball is drawn during the initial 9-ball draw, a special Bonus Wheel is triggered. While the Wild Ball does not count as a regular ball, the Bonus Wheel it triggers awards between 1 and 4 extra regular balls to be drawn for that round, increasing your winning chances.

Auto-Sort System, Autoplay, & Ticket Info Panel

The Auto-Sort system makes it easier to manage as many as 400 tickets per round. As numbers are drawn, the most relevant tickets that are closest to a win are automatically moved to the front and center of your screen. In addition, the dedicated Ticket Info Panel highlights the numbers you are waiting for and what the potential payout will be if they are drawn. Using Autoplay, you can set a specific number of rounds and tickets to play automatically.

Payouts

You win by completing vertical or horizontal lines of 3 numbers, and diagonal lines do not count as wins. Below, we list the regular payouts of The Bingo Spot, but keep in mind that multipliers can boost your winnings significantly:

• 1 Line: 1:1 (Even money)
• 2 Lines: 4:1
• 3 Lines: 24:1
• 4 Lines: 49:1
• Full House (All 9 numbers): 249:1

The Bingo Spot - Game Screen

Theme & Graphics

The Bingo Spot looks like your typical game show-inspired live game, with a friendly, well-dressed host chatting away and responding to players' questions and remarks in the live chat. The transparent glass tumbler takes center stage with a zoomed-in view when the balls are being drawn, and the brightly lit studio displays the lucky numbers prominently in the background. The special bonus wheel is seen on the right-hand side, with a slick user interface and your bingo tickets displayed at the bottom of the screen.

The Bingo Spot Free Play

Since this is a live casino game, there is no free The Bingo Spot demo to try. That’s just how it works with live games, as they are, well, live. However, you can always scroll to the top of this review page and head to one of our recommended casinos that carry this title. The casino allows you to observe the game for free, even if you cannot engage in a The Bingo Spot free play session. Observing allows you to get a feel of the flow of the game, and see if this is something you want to try for real money.

Pros and Cons of The Bingo Spot

Our Verdict

While slots remain my go-to favorite for gaming, I do enjoy the occasional live gaming session. However, The Bingo Spot only works if you are in the mood for the kind of relaxed and relatively slow-paced experience it offers. If you are in a hurry or just want some quick spins while riding public transport, this is hardly the game you want to engage with. It requires your full attention to be worthwhile, and it’s also great when you want to be social and have fun via the live chat.

That being said, The Bingo Spot follows closely in the footsteps of the predecessor, Vegas Ball Bonanza. However, while that now retired game limited the number of bingo tickets to 9, The Bingo Spot allows you to go big with up to 400 tickets per round. This should please high rollers, if not anyone else, and the smart auto-sort system makes it easy to keep an overview regardless of how many tickets you hold.

The Wild Ball feature has been carried over to this sequel, but some players may be disappointed to learn that the Star Ball feature has been removed. When the Star Ball was drawn, all 5 lucky numbers would immediately be activated across all tickets in play. This meant that all winning tickets with lucky numbers would be boosted by the multipliers, so this appropriately named ‘Star Ball’ was the true highlight of the original game.

Apparently, Pragmatic Play wanted to simplify the gameplay in The Bingo Spot, but that element of surprise might be sorely missed by some. Once you settle into the rhythm of the game, each round does build some tension as the balls are drawn, not least when you hit some special multiplier-boosted numbers. The max win of 20,000x remains the same as before, which is not too shabby for a bingo game. Overall, a decent follow-up, but Pragmatic could’ve kept both versions alive instead of replacing the original.