Bingo has been successfully adapted to fit the television game format in several countries notable among them the National Bingo Night primarily played in America but also has an Australian version of the same name. The “National Bingo Night” was the predecessor of “Bingo America” the game show airing on Game Show Network (GSN). Japan also has its version of televised bingo in the form of “Bing Bing! Bingo”.
The original National Bingo Night was supposed to be an interactive game wherein the home audience and the studio audience competed with a solo competing player to win the bingo. This format was repackaged in the Bingo America game show. The Bingo America game show was a general knowledge quiz between two competitors with a bingo game being played by the home audience.
The competing players in the studio compete for a prize of $100,000. Players competing in the quiz start with a set amount of money in their account known as the “bank”. The idea being for each question asked a ball is drawn out, which has a number between one and seventy-five. The ball also has one of the letters that spell BINGO. If the contestant gets the question right, they get the letter as well the money equal to the number on the ball. This money gets added to their “bank”. The first contestant to spell BINGO is the winner. Winning two games consecutively wins the bank. There are other rules for tiebreakers and bingo bonus rounds. The at home audience plays bingo alongside, by marking the numbers called out during the show on the preprinted cards. The cards are to be downloaded from the GSN website. The Australian version of the National Bingo Night is very similar to the US version, where the home audience competes with the solo studio player to win the bingo.
Though the success of bingo games in the television is limited, there are still variations of the game that are constantly being tried out for the broadcasting audience.
The success is limited by the lack of personalization that a traditional environment or even an online bingo hall can offer, especially with all the bingo promotions that are out there.
