How to Legally Run Bingo Events at your Company Event or Student Union

In December 2018, the UK Gambling Commission, a governmental body that regulates gambling in the UK, revealed that there had been a large increase in the number of people holding their own bingo events at nightclubs, student unions and workplaces.

However, doing this without a license is actually illegal, particularly if the event involves more than £2,000 worth of wagers or over £2,000 worth of prizes (Anyone wishing to go over this limit must obtain a license from the UK Gambling Commission). So, to make sure that you’re hosting your bingo events legally, we’ve come up with some helpful tips:

1. You cannot charge customers a fee for participating in the event and you cannot take a cut from the stakes or the prize pool.
2. Players participating in your bingo event can only stake a maximum of £5.
3. Only adults aged 18 and over can participate in the bingo event and you are legally required to prevent anyone under the age of 18 from playing.
4. Stakes made by participators for the bingo event must be returned to players. For example, if all players contribute £100 in total, then £100 in prizes must be returned to the players.
5. Bingo events can only be played on alcohol-licensed premises.

These tips should help make sure you’re running your bingo events legally while following the UK Gambling Commission’s standards. But if that’s still too much for you, why not consider playing bingo a different way?

Online Bingo

The UK Gambling Commission also announced last year that there had been an increase in the number of people playing online bingo, one of the most popular forms of online gambling, proving just how great online bingo really is. Online bingo works similarly to its real-life counterpart, except you can play it from the comfort of your own home and as much as you want, when you want!

Playing online bingo is easy! All you need to do is register at an online bingo site, buy a ticket to an online bingo game and start playing! Since it’s all digital, you don’t even need to mark the numbers off yourself! The bingo balls are drawn using a random number generator (RNG) and are automatically marked off your bingo ticket.

Most online bingo sites offer players a choice of bingo rooms, each offering a different variation of the game. The most popular variations include:

• 90 Ball Bingo: The most popular form of bingo in the UK. Played with 90 balls and 3x3 tickets, players must mark off the first row to win a prize, the first and second to win the second prize and mark off a full house to win the third prize.
• 75 Ball Bingo: The most popular form of bingo in the US. Played with 75 boxes and 5x5 tickets, players must complete specific patterns or shapes with their tickets in order to win prizes.

Both variations, along with some others not mentioned here, can be found at most online bingo sites. In addition, bingo sites tend to offer other games like slots along with some exciting welcome offers which give newly registered users extra money to play with. To find out more about online bingo and casinos in general, visit Casinostoplay.com, a dedicated UK resource for all things gambling.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.