Tips and tricks

Bingola doesn't require any special training, however here are some tips and tricks to get the most out of Bingola

Banter

As Bingola is intended as a fun word game, sparkling banter from the organiser is highly recommended. Do comment on interesting words. Make a joke or two. It's all part of the excitement.

Daubers vs pens

Daubers are coloured ink pens with spongy tips. They are currently used to mark off numbers on bingo cards. They are also known as bingo dotters and dabbers. A dauber is the easiest sort of pen to play Bingola.

When running regular events, it's not expensive to purchase a few daubers for the players. They cost between $2 to $4 each, depending on what sort of deal you can find. They are available online, at newsagents and in department stores.

In a classroom setting, there is no need to buy a dauber. Any pen or texta can be used. Even a pencil can be used. Just cross through the letter.

The Bingola package doesn't usually come with daubers or pens. If you'd like us to organise daubers, we're happy to help. Just let us know on your order, under Special instructions, how many daubers you need and we'll include it in your parcel.

Handing out tickets

The simplest way to start a Bingola event is to hand out all the tickets at the start. If you want to play 6 games, hand out each player 6 games. It doesn't matter which ticket a player uses first.

If you have a large number of players, it could be faster to prepare in advance. You could staple packs of tickets together, such as four or six at a time. Then you can quickly hand out tickets when your players arrive. This method reduces the chance of wasting tickets or giving out the wrong number of tickets.

Two ticket game

To increase the challenge and excitement of Bingola, it's possible to give each player two tickets in a game. In a two ticket game, if a player hears a letter in a word, they can tick off that letter in one ticket or in both tickets, all within the same turn.

Make sure all the players agree to this variation, because any player using just one ticket will be at a disadvantage.

Sorry, no patterns

In numeric Bingo, it's possible to win based on a pattern, such as a single row or the outer edge. Unfortunately, these variations do not work with Bingola. A row on a ticket does not have the same number of letters. It alters the outcome of the game somewhat unfairly.

Similar tickets

There are millions of combinations of Bingola tickets. Our system prevents the exact same ticket from appearing twice in the same batch or in consecutive batches. Some very similar tickets are also eliminated from batches. With random chance, some batches may appear to have some pattern, but this will be a coincidence.

More topics

Dictionaries

Wordlists are randomly selected from a Bingola dictionary. For children and beginners there are dictionary grades from 1 to 4 of increasing difficulty. The grade 1 dictionary has several hundred short, simple words. For adults, there is the senior dictionary with over nine thousands words. Take a peek at what to expect in each dictionary.

Tie breaking

About one in ten games may end in a tie. This is normal, however the organiser can use one of the tie breaking methods to select a winner. The winner could be who shouts "Bingola" first, who matches the next word or who wins a coin-toss.

Quality and fixing faults

Bingola is handmade in Australia. Some colours may vary from images of the game. We're pretty good at fixing damage and faults before any deliveries to customers, however if you do find a fault, do not hesitate to let us know. We can easily send replacement elements on request.

Bingola basics

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