Bingo has long been one of the UK’s favourite pastimes, and in the last few years that’s been bolstered significantly by the rise of online bingo. It’s turned the industry into one worth billions and is welcoming millions of new players worldwide.

Bingo halls on the other hand had suffered a bit of a dip in people visiting them in the early 2000s, with only 400 bingo halls left in the UK according to studies. However, the popularity of online is starting to spill into the live bingo halls, creating a thriving scene once more.

But what are the main differences between live bingo halls and online bingo?

The Setting

Of course, the main difference between online and live bingo hall bingo is the setting and location. Essentially, with live bingo hall bingo you have to visit a brick-and-mortar bingo hall to play and visit at a time when it’s open and a game is about to start.

Online on the other hand is much more flexible. There are hundreds of games starting every second and with the likes of mobile bingo you can play anytime, anywhere.

What you will find is that you of course don’t necessarily get the same sort of social interaction with online as you would offline, with the ability to sit together at tables and interact with those around you. However, the emergence of chat rooms in online bingo is helping to create new communities online.

Variety of Games

You’ll generally find a wider variety of bingo games online, with technology allowing sites to be more creative and integrate other aspects of online gaming, such as slingo bingo. In live bingo halls you’re more likely to find the traditional variants such as 75-ball bingo and 90-ball bingo, with very few halls swaying much further from that.

You may find that speed rounds are available to play in offline bingo, but there are few more variations. That’s compared to online where you’ll find plenty of ways in which the game is sped up, including games with fewer balls, exclusive speed bingo games, and a range of exciting new variants such as Swedish bingo.

Cost to Play & Prizes

You’ll generally find you can enjoy a cheaper buy-in on bingo games online as they have fewer overhead costs to think about in comparison to live bingo halls.

In land-based bingo, it can cost around £5 on average to play, in comparison with online bingo, where you can often play for as little as £1 per game.

The prizes are also generally bigger in online bingo. In live bingo hall games the biggest jackpot occurs in the National Bingo Game which links bingo halls across the country to play for a prize of £250,000.

Online bingo jackpots will often exceed this, particularly with progressive jackpot games which can often offer double that figure and more!

Gameplay

As you can imagine, the use of technology in online bingo games makes the game itself a little different. In live bingo halls a player must dab to mark off the numbers on their card and ensure they don’t miss any being read out by the caller.

In online bingo however, there are auto-dab features that will automatically mark off your numbers so you don’t miss a thing. This also gives you a better opportunity to play with multiple cards and still keep up with gameplay.

This generally makes online bingo a much faster game to play along with in comparison with the live halls, with callers having to allow enough time for players to mark off multiple cards.