I’ve reviewed many of Pragmatic Play’s online slots over the years, but I am still relatively new to the developer's work in online bingo. Their ‘Reels Room’ bingo is a UK-style 90-Ball game that awards slot spins as prizes instead of cash. I’m not sure how I feel about this – if the prize fund is translated directly to several spins of equal value, the true value of those spins would still be negative. The RTP is also advertised as being ‘above 70%’, which is undoubtedly on the low side even by online bingo standards. Despite these facts, the game looks to be popular at sites that offer Pragmatic Play bingo – is there more to this one than meets the eye? Let’s find out!
I tried my best to find out how the ‘Peak Power’ jackpot feature of the game works before I began to play but could find little mention of this within the game or on the pages of the bingo sites such as Heart Bingo that are currently offering Reels Room bingo. Jumping over to Google, the answer soon became apparent – the advertised jackpot is the one available in the slot you are trying to win spins for rather than the bingo itself! This all needs to be explained much clearer – no site would get away with being this vague about vital aspects of their games in the online casino space.
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£5 Deposit
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£10 Deposit
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First-time depositors only (18+ country restrictions apply). Min deposit: £10. Max offer: 2,500 Free Bingo Tickets (on 250 on Street Party valid for 21 days & 2,250 For Kaching valid for 24 days) & 25 Pending Free Spins (on a game of our choice). Promo code: BINGO25. Free Spins are valid for 7 days & will be available once £5 of deposit funds have been wagered. FS winnings are capped at £2.50. All winnings are credited to your real money balance. We reserve the right to deny promotional offers based on abusive bonus activity across sites operated by the Company. Deposit balance is available for withdrawal at any time (UK only). General withdrawal restrictions & full T&Cs apply. Valid until further notice. View Full T&Cs.
200% Bonus
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First-time depositors only (18+ country restrictions apply). Min deposit: £10. Max offer: 200% Bingo Bonus up to £20 & 50 Free Spins (on Starburst). 10 Free Spins will be credited per day, across 5 days. Promo code: BONUS200. Any Bingo Bonus winnings, if applicable, must be wagered 4x before withdrawal. Any Free Spins winnings, if applicable, will be credited as bonus funds. FS winnings must be wagered 99x before withdrawal. Free Spins are valid for 7 days. Games Bonus win cap: £100 + original bonus amount. Wagering contribution varies by game. We reserve the right to deny bonuses based on abusive bonus activity across sites operated by the Company. Deposit balance is available for withdrawal at any time (UK only). General withdrawal restrictions apply. Valid until 31.12.2023 View Full T&Cs.
£10 Deposit
Our Score
First-time depositors only (18+ country restrictions apply). Min deposit: £10. Max offer: 100% Bingo Bonus up to £10 & 50 Free Spins (on Starburst). 10 Free Spins will be credited per day, across 5 days. Promo code: FREE50. Any Bingo Bonus winnings, if applicable, must be wagered 4x before withdrawal. Any Free Spins winnings, if applicable, will be credited as bonus funds. FS winnings must be wagered 99x before withdrawal. Free Spins are valid for 7 days. Games Bonus win cap: £100 + original bonus amount. Wagering contribution varies by game. We reserve the right to deny bonuses based on abusive bonus activity across sites operated by the Company. Deposit balance is available for withdrawal at any time (UK only). General withdrawal restrictions apply. Valid until further notice. View Full T&Cs.
£10 Deposit
Our Score
First-time depositors only (18+ country restrictions apply). Min deposit: £10. Max offer: 2,500 Free Bingo Tickets (on 250 on Street Party valid for 21 days & 2,250 For Kaching valid for 24 days) & 25 Pending Free Spins (on a game of our choice). Promo code: BINGO25. Free Spins are valid for 7 days & will be available once £5 of deposit funds have been wagered. FS winnings are capped at £2.50. All winnings are credited to your real money balance. We reserve the right to deny promotional offers based on abusive bonus activity across sites operated by the Company. Deposit balance is available for withdrawal at any time (UK only). General withdrawal restrictions & full T&Cs apply. Valid until further notice. View Full T&Cs.
If the name Reels Room Bingo sounds familiar, you may be thinking of the similarly named Reel Bingo that we looked at in the past. I’ve seen plenty of previous screenshots of Reels Room Bingo in action, so I know that the theme used in the game changes according to the slot machine spins currently being offered up as prizes. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, I could not see any game changes ahead on the schedule – it only shows a couple of hours into the future, but it does seem that the theme and prizes might not change all that often. That’s especially surprising given how prolific Pragmatic Play is in the online slot world – these guys pump out half a dozen games each month, I’d guess on average, so it’s not like they haven’t got plenty of options to choose from!
The colour scheme visible in our screenshots does indeed match that of Pragmatic Play’s Peak Power online slot, but that’s about as far as the theming goes. The bingo cards used in the game are of the standard 9x3 90-Ball type, with a total of 15 numbers per ticket. Each round offers three prizes – one for being first to complete a line, another for two lines, and of course – the full house. Players can purchase anywhere between one and one hundred tickets for each round.
The pricing seems to vary wildly between rounds – for example, the first game today has tickets priced at 30p and a prize fund of 160 free spins, but the next few games after that immediately drop to just 2p each… and all offer different numbers of spins as prizes? To make things even more confusing, the value of each spin can vary as well – some games offer minimum bet 10p spins, whilst others might give you a handful of premium £2 spins instead.
I’m sure that you are already familiar with 90-Ball Bingo! If, by some chance, that is not the case, be sure to check out our step-by-step guide to the format before beginning to play Reels Room. It’s especially relevant here, too, as this game follows the 90-Ball template almost to the letter. The only real difference between Reels Room and the standard 90-Ball rooms that every site offers is that the prizes are paid out in spins. Whilst that does seem a little lazy, I guess they did give us a clue by including the word ‘room’ in the title!
As is typically the case with 90-Ball Bingo, the first player or players to complete all the numbers on one of the rows of a ticket will receive the round's first prize. When I played, this was 25 £0.10 slot spins – technically worth £2.50, but there’s no way to know how much your balance will be after you have finished playing them! After that, the two and three-line prizes increase the spin count to 35 and 100, respectively, both still set at £0.10 each. That’s a total of 160 spins, or £16.00 worth of value in payouts – around 53x the cost of a single ticket.
The game info page mentions a so-called ‘Peak Power’ jackpot, but after researching, I concluded that this relates not to the bingo game itself but to the slot instead. Even on the prizes page, the ‘Peak Power’ shown at the top of the list has no matching value shown on the right. As such, I will declare this one empty regarding special features other than the slot spin prizes discussed previously.
If Pragmatic Play had been a little more generous here, then I think they could have been onto something with Reels Room – just bumping up the value of the free spins a little would have made a massive difference because players are automatically taking a risk by choosing not to simply play cash bingo! But, unfortunately, that is precisely what I think you should do rather than play this one.
Article by Chris Howlett
Chris has over 11 years of experience playing and writing about bingo and online slots.