Part of the game when playing online bingo is there’s plenty of fun to be had, but there’s also money on the line!
With each game of online bingo, there are those that win and those that don’t – so if you can count yourself in the winner’s column you should know how payouts work.
How much money you can win on a payout will change depending on the type of game you’re playing, how much a ticket costs to join a game, how many people are playing in a given game and whether the game has multiple prizes up for grabs or just one bigger one for a full card.
But most of all, the way that payouts work is generally best determined by something called Return to Player, or RTP.
Return to Player (RTP) explained
Return to Player is a measurement used to determine how much money is returned to the players’ pockets on average, expressed as a percentage.
RTP is a calculated amount that you as a player will get back from playing, on average. So if a bingo game has an RTP of 80%, for every $1 that you wager, you can reasonably expect to get $0.80 back in winnings, with $0.20 going to the casino.
A game with a higher RTP means that on average, you’re more likely to win compared to games with lower RTP. It’s a good way to see what your odds are of winning, as well as how much places like Casino Time make on a given game.
That said, this doesn’t mean that you’ll always get $0.80 back on every dollar played – this is an average that applies to all players of that game. In theory, you could play for days and never win, so just keep this in mind.
How online bingo payouts are calculated
In other online games like slots, the RTP is a clear and easy way to help you determine what payouts are like for each game. However, in online bingo, there are other factors that impact the payout such as different types of bingo games having different RTPs based on things like whether it’s a 90 ball versus 75 ball game, how jackpots are calculated and more. The four main factors that influence online bingo payouts are:
- Minimum guaranteed jackpot – some games will have a minimum amount you’re guaranteed to get if you win, which can be higher or lower depending on how much a ticket (card) costs.
- Total tickets purchased – the more tickets (cards) purchased and the more people playing, the bigger the total pot for you to win.
- Number of prizes – some games will have the main prize, as well as several smaller prizes you can win depending on different combinations of numbers, lines or other conditions.
- Progressive jackpot – if your bingo game is linked to a progressive jackpot the total amount you can win from your game will be smaller, as an amount will need to be added to this larger progressive jackpot.
Other factors that impact your payout
There are a bunch of other elements that can potentially influence how much you get in a payout, and they’re largely down to what you do outside of the bingo games themselves:
- Wagering requirements – if you’ve claimed a bonus, chances are it comes with a wagering requirement, or the number of times you must play before you can cash out.
- Winnings limits – you might run into a cap on how much you can win if you’ve claimed bonuses that give you free credit.
- Withdrawal limits – depending on where you’re playing, the casino or bingo site might have a cap on how much you can withdraw.
