How Differnt is the UK Bingo from the US version
The United States and the United Kingdom are two countries with a lot of similarities. The US culture was influenced a lot by the British culture. Despite these similarities are many differences. Notice that even if both countries use English as the primary language, they speak English differently.
It is understandable that there are other differences in the US and the UK in addition to the geographical conditions. Even the way the people play gambling games in these countries are quite different. Included in these games is bingo, which is played differently in the US and in the UK.
Bingo in United Kingdom and Australia is known as housie. The major differences between bingo and housie are the cards and the methods the numbers are called.
The Housie Tickets
The housie ticket is the counterpart of the US bingo card. Unlike the bingo card, which has twenty four numbers plus a bonus space at the middle, the housie ticket only has fifteen numbers.
The numbers are arranged on nine vertical columns with three horizontal rows. Each row has five numbers and four blank spaces. The columns can contain one or two numbers. On rare conditions, the columns can have up to three numbers.
The first column has the numbers one to nine. The second column contains any number from ten to nineteen. The third column has numbers from twenty to twenty nine. The fourth column has thirty to thirty nine. The numbers forty to forty nine are on the fifth column. The sixth column has the numbers fifty to fifty nine. The seventh column has sixty to sixty nine. The numbers seventy to seventy nine belong to the eighth column. And the last column has the numbers eighty to ninety.
Just like in bingo, housie is moderated by a caller who calls out the numbers being drawn by the machine and also validates if someone wins the game.
The phrase "house down" indicates that the game will start. As the numbers for housie are being drawn by the random number generator, the caller announces the numbers by calling out the each digit of the number and then reading the number. For example, if twenty one was drawn, the caller would say, "two and one, twenty one."
Winning patterns in house are quite the same as that in bingo. You may win by having covered a horizontal line on your ticket. This means having five number marked. You may also win in housie by forming two lines on your ticket. Or you may win by marking all the fifteen numbers on your housie ticket.
When you have one of the winning patterns, you have to shout just like in bingo. However, in housie you have to say "line," if you have formed a line, or "house" if you have completed all the fifteen numbers.