bingo bowl

  • Studio: Playtech
  • Our Rating: 6.2

Visit your local bowling alley, and you’ll need to knock down all ten pins thirteen times in a row to score an elusive 300 – otherwise known as a perfect game. As they always say, though, “ain’t nobody got time for that!” – and that’s precisely why games such as Playtech’s 50-Ball Bingo Bowl exist, a speed bingo variant that only requires you to clear a single set of ten pins for a perfect game. There’s just a single prize up for grabs in each round here, and at the time of writing, that stood at exactly 200x the cost of a single ticket – it seems this must be a mandatory minimum, as it would be exceedingly unlikely for the prize pool to remain consistent across several rounds otherwise. 

The bowling theme has been implemented quite well here, in my opinion, and has been tied into both of the games’ special features. Whilst both are labelled as jackpots, they each work quite differently – the ‘Kingpin Jackpot’ is more of a feature and works very much as the Judges Jackpot feature included in X-Factor Bingo. Whilst there’s little to connect the theme of these two games, the fact that this feature works identically isn’t surprising, considering that they are both 50-Ball speed bingo games produced by Playtech. The real ‘jackpot’ is the Lucky Strike Progressive, which is worth more than £2,500 at the time of writing.

Bingo Bowl
  • Software: Playtech
  • Theme: Bowling
  • Cost Per Ticket: 5p Upwards
  • Jackpots: Yes
  • Bonus Rounds: Yes
  • Balls: 50
  • Our Rating: 6.2

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bingo bowl theme, tickets & prizes

Bingo BowlBingo Bowl

Ten-pin bowling has been around a long time at this point – in fact, the first official record of the sport being played dates back to 1810. One interesting aspect of the game is that even when played as part of a professional competition, games are held in a mixed-sex format – particularly unusual for an Olympic sport. It took some time for the game to make the transition to the digital realm successfully, however – Nintendo just about cracked it with the release of Wii Sports back in 2006, but this is the first time that I’ve seen a gambling-based version of the sport that is worth your time of day.

The 50-Ball Speed Bingo format is a perfect match for a ten-pin bowling-based bingo game, as the tickets used in these games usually comprise ten numbers each. In this case, each ticket is displayed as a rack of ten bowling pins, each with a number printed on it. This fits in perfectly with the theme and looks really cool as well.

At the time when I played Bingo Bowl, the price of a single ticket to play was set at just 5p each – this is likely to vary at different times of the day and by the number of people who are currently in the room at that time, but the typical setup for changing these variables usually means that the ticket price will go up at quieter times – when I played, the room only had 17 active participants – I’m therefore not sure what determines the price of a ticket, nor what metric is used to set the number of tickets that each player can purchase for any given round.


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Bingo Bowl GameplayBingo Bowl Gameplay

One of the best things about online bingo games, in general, is their near-unrivalled level of user-friendliness overall. You don’t need to know much about anything to do with these games to be able to open them up and have a bit of fun engaging with them; that being said, however, taking the time to learn a little about each game can often help you to get the most fun and enjoyment out of it, as there is often a surprising amount of depth to be found underneath the surface of some of the best variants of online bingo. If you haven’t spent much time playing the 50-Ball speed bingo format before now, be sure to give our format overview page a scan before you begin to play Bingo Bowl – you could discover a few tricks that will help you gain the maximum possible enjoyment from your next few games of online bingo!

In keeping with the whole bowling theme of Bingo Bowl, the single prize offered in each round of this game is referred to as the ‘Strike’ prize. In most other games of 50-Ball bingo, this would be labelled the full house prize, and there is functionally no difference between the two. Simply put, each of your tickets includes ten numbered bowling pins, and you’ll need to knock all ten of these down before anybody else to collect the payout. 

There is always a chance that two or more players will hit their final pin on the same number, and when this does occur, each player will receive an equal share of the overall prize pool. I didn’t see this happen once during my time playing this game, but the chances of such a result taking place will obviously increase during busier times or during rounds where players are allowed to purchase a large number of tickets each – personally if I see that the prize amount is significantly higher than usual, I consider that to be a good indication that a split pot is far more likely to occur.


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Bingo Bowl Winning PlayerBingo Bowl Winning Player

Bingo Bowl has two special features to discuss – the Kingpin Ticket comes into play very frequently, whilst the ‘Lucky Strike’ is something you might never see in effect even if you were to play this game every day for a few months or more!


kingpin ticket feature

The so-called ‘Kingpin jackpot’ ticket is a shared card active for every player that has purchased at least one standard ticket for each round of Bingo Bowl. If you play this game on a regular computer or laptop, this extra card is always visible in the top-left of the standard window. For those playing on a device with a smaller display, you’ll need to press the ‘view kingpin ticket’ button to see the current state of the extra ticket.

The advantage this bonus-free ticket offers depends on the numbers called during each round. When any player wins the ‘Strike!’ prize, the final number that completed their ticket determines what bonus – if any – is paid by the Kingpin Ticket. 

If the final number appears anywhere on the Kingpin Ticket, the player who hits the strike prize is paid an additional bonus of £5. However, should the final number complete the entire Kingpin Ticket, this bonus is increased to £50 instead. Note that when the latter scenario occurs, the strike prize winner only receives half of the £50 payout – the other 50% is split equally between the other players who held tickets during the winning round.


lucky Strike progressive jackpot

This is the big one – complete your entire set of ten pins and call a strike within 15 calls or less, and you’ll trigger the game's ultimate progressive jackpot prize. This is another community prize, meaning the winning player collects 50% of the total amount, with the remainder shared amongst the other players in the winning round. 

The jackpot increases with every ticket purchased by every player at a rate of 0.2% per card, which is an effective rate of £10 added to the jackpot for every £5000 of tickets purchased. 


Pros

  • The bowling theme is well executed and works well in the 50-Ball format.
  • The Kingpin Ticket feature seems to trigger frequently.
  • A rare opportunity to play speed bingo with more than one ticket per round.

Cons

  • Judging by historical records, the lucky strike progressive seems extremely difficult to win. 
  • The 0.2% ticket contribution towards the progressive jackpot also feels a little on the tight side compared to other bingo jackpots. 
  • Only available at a limited number of sites, despite being a Virtue Fusion (Playtech) game.

bingo bowl final thoughts

It was a stroke of genius to make a 50-Ball bingo game out of ten-pin bowling, as the ten numbers per ticket format of these games align perfectly with the theme. Sadly, the special features both feel somewhat tight-fisted here, spoiling what could otherwise have been an excellent bingo variant.

aUTHOR


Chris Howlett

Article by Chris Howlett

Chris has over 11 years of experience playing and writing about bingo and online slots.

About Chris Howlett >

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