Bingos - How They work

As you can see a bingo machine playfield is totally different from a pinball machine playfield. You shoot five balls onto a field of 25 holes to try to make a three, four or five in a row on a bingo card shown on the backglass display. Every bingo machine has extra options to make it more challenging. The more money you put in at the start, the more features and/or payout odds are activated.



Although it was not always legal to do so, usually the credits (ie money) earned by a player was paid out by the location owner (who had a way to reset the credit counter back to zero). These bingos are the most complex mechanically machines ever created in that time.
A good way to understand how they work is to play one, however I have found an excellent Bingo Simulator of a collection of different Bingos here.

Before describing the actual components that make up a bingo Pinball, a description of the major functions that are implemented in one of these games seems to be in order. I have divided these functions into five categories; feature (and odds) selection, ball control, winner detection, payout, and extra ball feature.

FEATURE SELECTION

Feature selection is the operation that occurs before the first ball is shot, during the depositing of one or more coins [the spin cycle]. For each coin deposited, or replay played off, various actions can occur. Odds may be increased, free numbers may be spotted, features such as four corners scoring or turning corners may be enabled, etc. These events occur in a pseudo-random fashion (described by the manufacturers as mystery Intervals) and it is entirely possible that nothing at all will occur (except for internal mechanism noise) with the deposit of any given coin. In many cases arrows on the backglass may advance to indicate to the player that certain features are getting closer to occurring.

BALL CONTROL

Ball control includes raising the first, and subsequent, balls to the playfield, keeping track of which ball is being played, and allowing balls to be re-raised if one falls into the ball return hole at the bottom of the playfield.

WINNER DETECTION

Winner detection is searching the position in playfield holes of all balls played to determine if a winning in-line (or four corners if enabled) combination has been achieved.

PAYOUT

Payout is the scoring of replays, on the replay register on the backboard in accordance with the type of win (3-in-line 4-in-line, 5-in-line, or four corners) and the odds indicated on the backglass.

EXTRA BALLS

Finally, the extra ball feature allows a player the chance to play up to three extra balls, in addition to the normal five balls per game. These awards are achieved by depositing additional coins, or playing replays, after the normal five balls have been played. The awarding of extra balls also occurs in a pseudo-random manner as extra coins are played.


BINGOS - FOR AMUSEMENT ONLY