Bingo was once one of the most popular entertainment options in the US and later, the UK, with it also gaining a high status in Japan. It’s a lottery game of numbered balls, but its somewhat delayed online launch has forced the bingo to play catch up to many other gaming games.
Slots, on the other hand, are by far the biggest – in terms of popularity, gross gambling yield, and number – games in online gambling. So, having successfully landed bingo online, developers Slingo Originals set out on blending the most popular game type with the newcomer, forging a series of Slingo games.
So, what is Slingo, and does the slots-bingo combination work?
How does Slingo work?
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Slingo does as it says in its name: it’s a game that offers a combination of slot spinning and bingo dabbing. So, when you play Slingo bingo online, you’ll first need to select your stake to pay for the total set number of spins – which is usually around nine or ten spins for that game. As each spin comes in, a set of numbers is revealed. If any match your bingo sheet, they’ll get dabbed off.
Each spin reveals more numbers and sometimes feature symbols, which can be used to dab off any symbol along its corresponding row, or sometimes, any symbol on your sheet. As you complete lines of five numbers vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, you’ll either climb up the rewards board or unlock another collectible symbol to get closer to a set prize.
This is the core theme of Slingo, but the many variations of the hybrid casino series play with the game a little bit to make them unique and fit new themes. Ones based on popular slots like Slingo Starburst use its symbols while the likes of Slingo Fire & Ice double up, offering two bingo sheets to play across its Fire and Ice side.
Novel themes and Prize Lines
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When Singo Originals release a new game, they often pick a new theme and lean into it about as much as the slot-bingo genre will allow. Perhaps the most distinct example of this is with the Slingo Who Wants to Be a Millionaire game, which draws from the original ITV game show of the same name. Here, completing bingo lines reveals a symbol instead of a tier up in prizes, with you needing three of the same to triumph. There’s also the 100,000x jackpot should you get a full house in seven spins.
The Prize Lines games are another feature of the Slingo section that have proven popular. While not made by Slingo Originals, instead by Blueprint Gaming, Prize Lines games follow a similar formula of completing lines to get a higher tier of prize, but they tend to also boast more features, so lean more towards the slots than the bingo. In King Kong Cash Prize Line, which clearly draws from the classic Donkey Kong character, you can enter the Barrel Blast round to find multipliers.
Slingo certainly lives up to its billing as a combination of slots and bingo in its mechanics, its embrace of themes, and number dabbing. If you’d rather a more slots-like hybrid game, though, Prize Lines in the Slingo section are the better choice.
