One of the most common types of bonus is the sign-up bonus.  This means the company will match every dollar you initially pay into your account with a certain amount of their own.  This can be as low as 10% or as high as 300%.  If you sign up with a company offering a 300% sign-up bonus and pay £100 into your account, they will add £300 from their funds, so you can start playing with £400.

It is important to note that most online sites will not allow you to withdraw the sign-up bonus in cash.  You have to use it to play with.

Sometimes online sites offer bonuses without you having to deposit anything.  Such a bonus in fact allows you to start playing without risking any of your own money.  Of course the company hopes that eventually you will deposit some of your own funds.

A reload bonus is where the company matches your subsequent deposits with some of their own money.  The aim is once again to retain you as a customer.  In a sense they are rewarding you because you are an existing customer and they do not want you to leave for another site where you can start off with a new sign-up bonus.

You are randomly slotted into a team, and then shuffled around every fortnight. This means that everyone has a chance of being in a winning team, as well as making more friends. Winkbingo says that this is the best and fairest way to run this type of Team Bingo.

Over each two-week period, all you have to do, along with your team mates for that fortnight, is play as many bingo games as you can. The winners are the ones who have most bingos at the end of the two weeks, so obviously the more you play, the better your chances are.

You will be able to see how all the teams are doing each day by logging onto the leader board. At the end of the two weeks, the team members are swapped around, and the scores all returned to zero.

All you have to do is sign up for Team Bingo and register for the next competition. Only games played between 8.00am and 11.00pm UK time will be credited to your team’s score. Both 75-ball wins and Full House 90-ball wins count towards your Team Bingo score.

Once you have registered, you are automatically put through to the next competition.

When a site gives you a free signup bonus, you have to read the fine print.  Normally there will be a requirement that you have to invest a certain amount of your own money before you will be allowed to withdraw your winnings.  Other sites have what are called play-through requirements.  This means you can only withdraw your money from the site once you have played through the bonus a certain number of times.

Another very common type of online bingo bonus is one in which the company matches your initial deposit with a certain amount of its own.  If you deposit £100 and they have a 100% deposit match system, the site will add £100 and your account will therefore be credited with £200.  There are some online companies that give up to 300% deposit matches.  The increasing competitiveness of the online bingo industry has resulted in some sites offering permanent deposit match programmes.  In other words they will match all future deposits you make, not just the initial one.

At the moment, if you check out the site, they have many bingo bargains – just perfect for those of us who are conscious of the economic recession, but still want to enjoy our daily game of bingo.

Everyday Tea and Bingo list bingo tickets at super-affordable prices. They have promotions and cut-price tickets, ensuring that you can make your money stretch through the coming months of government austerity. And, hey, if you were to win a big prize, words like recession would soon disappear in your life like a summer mist.

So onto Tea and Bingo’s basement bargains.

First of all, in the Bing-o-Rama between 9am and 12pm, all games are 2p, 4p or 5p – a fantastic bargain.

Between 12 and 1pm, all players have to buy 12 tickets at only 5p each to play the Fair for All and Even Stevens games. That way, everyone has the same chance of winning. Seems fair.

If you do not win the game that takes place every six minutes to the hour, it means that you are eligible to take part in the Last Chance Saloon’s Scratchcard for a chance to win – and that is not a bargain, it is free.

Finally, you can be in the Frog and Crown between 8 and 9pm and join in the Happy Hour with BOGOF bingo games.

The bingo section of the website offers a pretty reasonable selection of games.  The classic ninety-ball games pay out for first and second lines and a full house. Whereas the seventy-five ball game offers a single, but bigger, pay out for the first person to cover the number pattern.

Jackpots are also pretty good, with daily pots of around £500 plus cumulative pots as well.  There are also set games during the course of the week which offer much higher jackpots of up to £5,500, and there is also a monthly game with a £10,000 pot to pay out.

The site also provides other gaming entertainment for players.  There is a section for quick-fire, instant pay out games with items such as virtual scratch cards, instant lotto, and classic hi-lo games.  In addition there is a casino section which offers roulette, blackjack, and a very good video poker game.

Overall, this seems to be a very good site with a good feel to it – providing you don’t get too frustrated with the home page.

Although there’s no real Caller in the virtual world to read out the numbers, the essence of the game is still to match your own numbers in a set pattern to those ‘called out’ and hopefully scoop the jackpot.

Online Bingo sites such as Foxy Bingo and 888Ladies.com have to effectively reproduce the Bingo hall experience to the online punter, so straight Bingo is not the only thing on offer.

As well as numerous promotions and special offers, there are different types of Bingo to be played as well as some other popular games such as slots – just as the high street venues have quick games available between the main ones. Most of the sites also have a community area where regulars can chat about their experiences. A 24-hour help desk is also there in case of any problems.

Just set up an account and make a small deposit to get started playing for money, or if you prefer, you can play a few free bingo games to get used to how it works before signing up. There are lots of promotions to entice potential players inside the front door.

This was one of the reasons it took off in the United States in the early twentieth century, when churches adopted it for fundraising. Surprisingly, this communal spirit is also present with online Bingo, because there are communal areas available at the click of a button in which you can chat with other players without any of the shyness you might feel when walking up to strangers in a high street Bingo club.

The rules are unchanged. Players have to match their numbers against those supplied by the system – the equivalent of the Caller – and the first to complete a prearranged pattern of numbers is the winner.

Instead of a floor walker checking your card, the system will do it automatically, and the winnings will be deposited into your secure online account. When you open such an account with a site you usually have to make a small deposit before beginning to play for money, but you can play Free Bingo games for nothing if you so wish although there’ll be no prizes.

Littlewoods Bingo, Foxy Bingo and 888Ladies Bingo are just some of the hundreds of online sites out there, and it’s a matter of finding the one that suits you best.

Here, thanks to advances in Internet technology and online security, games you used to play at a table or in a crowded room can be played at your computer with the mouse doing all the work of clicking a range of options.

The typical online Bingo site has a home page that summarises all that is available on the site. Promotions and special offers are evident all across the site. The main menu buttons across the top and the left margins indicate the variety of actions you can take.

After opening an account and making a small deposit, you can simply click on the game you want to start playing. Often, as in the case with so-called free Bingo, even the deposit is not necessary to start playing for money.

There are also many incentives for the new player – with sites offering such freebies as matching your first deposit once you’ve won it back. Online slots and other games are also available to play if you fancy a break from Bingo, and there is even the equivalent of a club room where you can have a chat with other players.

As with clubs in the real world, loyalty incentives are given to players to keep them coming back for more. The intense competition ensures a steady supply of special offers.

You could be sitting in a hut in the Scottish highlands, but as long as you have an Internet connection and a PC, you can be ticking off your numbers almost as soon as it takes to shout ‘Bingo!’

The electronic version of Bingo, or online Bingo, is the same as the familiar version we all know from the Bingo clubs up and down the country. The many sites offering it are at pains to make you feel right at home. Promotions and special offers are well equipped to entice you in with bonus points and other freebies, and you can see at a glance which menu buttons to press in order to get to where you want.

Registering and opening an account is a simple matter; you simply click on the games button to start playing for cash prizes. Online sites such as Foxy Bingo and 888Ladies Bingo are colourful and fun to use, completely safe and have their own online communities where you can chat with the other players and make some new friends as well as offering a range of free bingo games.

It’s a good idea to play a few free games first to get a feel for the website and this allows you to decide whether it’s the right one for you. There are plenty to choose from and preference is down to personal taste. 

Online bingo sites usually have a ‘chat’ feature, so you can interact with other players, make new friends and have fun while playing a game you enjoy. That is one of the benefits of playing online as opposed to playing in a bingo hall. Generally, talking in a bingo hall while a game is in progress is frowned upon. Some sites even have an ‘Auto–Daub’ feature, which will mark off your numbers automatically, so there is no need to worry that you will miss a number if you get caught up in conversation with a new online friend.

Many of the online bingo sites offer free bingo games, so you can still play and have fun without it costing you a penny. Of course with these games you don’t get to win anything either. Some online casino sites also offer very inexpensive games, so for anyone wishing to play for around 10p a time, the option is available. There are also some sites that limit the number of ‘game cards’ you can play or that only allow their players to buy the same number of cards, which makes playing fairer.