Be More Adele and Host Bingo Nights at Home

Legendary singer Adele has confirmed that she'll be stepping down from her Las Vegas shows this year, and to fill the time, she wants to host bingo nights. She confirmed she plans to hold weekly bingo nights at her home in LA with her friends, as her family used to play bingo twice a week when she was younger.

So, with Adele’s dreams in mind, we have everything you need to know about games, equipment and rules so you can also start to host bingo nights with your friends at home.

Select a night and location

Ideally, choose a night of the week or month to host your bingo night and stick to it so that it becomes a regular event in the diary and your friends know the time and location. Once you’ve played a few times, you’ll have the skills and equipment to rotate around other friends’ houses, too, for some variety.

Do you need a bingo licence?

You don't need a licence when you host bingo nights at home. Legally, bingo is considered gambling and falls under UK gambling legislation. However, you don’t require a licence in the UK because non-commercial, private nights, as Adele has mentioned, are considered gaming by the UK Gambling Commission.

You only need a licence if you are a bingo hall or online bingo site or you're running a night for profit.

Types of bingo games

There are different types of bingo, and before you host a bingo night, you need to select a game and learn the rules! The main types are:

90 ball bingo: The most common type of bingo, these games are played with 90 numbered balls. The bingo tickets consist of a grid of 15 numbers from one to 90.

Each line has nine spaces with five numbers, and the rest of the spaces are left blank. The goal in 90 ball bingo is to fill in as many numbers on the card as possible and hopefully complete all three lines. The rules are simple, and it’s a great bingo game to start with on your bingo night.

Find out more about this game in our 90 ball bingo guide.

75 ball bingo: This type of bingo game can be a little more complicated to learn, but unlike 90 ball bingo, the prize for 75 ball bingo is awarded to the first player to complete a pattern that’s highlighted on everyone’s ticket.

This game adds more variation to bingo, but if you have multiple tickets, it can be harder to follow without the help of an auto dabber on the online version.

Read our 75 ball bingo guide to learn more about this game and how to win.

What equipment do you need?

The good news is that you don’t need a lot of expensive equipment to host bingo nights at home. So what do you need?

Tickets: These can be really low cost for basic books of tickets, or you can pay more to buy personalised ones if you want to surprise your guests.  Ensure that you buy lots as you won’t be able to reuse them, and there are plenty of places online to buy them.

Bingo number generator: You can buy a traditional bingo ball machine to release random numbers or use an electronic number generator, which you place in view of all your players, and they can see the selected number on a screen.

However, the free option is an online number generator. Simply connect to a computer, laptop or tablet and face the screen towards your players can get playing.

Daubers: Don’t forget bingo daubers!  You can provide them, or guests can bring their own. If you can’t arrange actual bingo daubers, then other markers will work.

Connect friends virtually

Another aspect of your bingo night to consider is including friends who can’t attend in person. Surely Adele has friends and family in the UK she’ll want to include in her LA bingo nights?

Including people for a virtual bingo night to join those in person is completely doable. Simply select your option for hosting the video calls (e.g. Zoom, Teams) and outline to the virtual players how to select their ticket/s. It might be through a Google ‘random number generator’ tool or via tickets you send them in advance.

Winning and prizes

Adele may not have too many concerns about buying prizes for her bingo night, but prizes are a consideration as they come at a cost.

You can offer some really small prizes (usually three in a game of 90 ball bingo for one line, two lines and a full house) or only a prize for the full house. Or don't offer prizes and just enjoy the celebration of winning! Alternatively, you could ask players to bring a small contribution to the game, which can be offered as prizes.

Remember, playing at home is more about socialising and having fun rather than trying to win big!

For everything you need to know about bingo, read our helpful bingo guides now.