Some players advocate a system of tracking numbers. To use this system,
according to one expert, you need to play four cards at most for each game. You
bring along to each bingo session a sheet of paper listing the numbers from 1 to
75, then check off each number as it's called, for the entire session of games.
Do this for at least five sessions. (It seems to be assumed that you play in the
same parlor and that the same mechanism is used for dispensing the numbers at
each game.) Then, you gather your tracking sheets and count the number of times
that each of the 75 numbers was called. Divide that tally by 75 to deter- mine
the relative probability of each number. Then, the next time you play bingo,
select your cards to take maximum advantage of the numbers that you've tracked
as most likely to be drawn.
One essential point to bear in mind when a friend or a book recommends a certain
mathematical system: so much depends on the type of game. The guide that advises
players to focus on the "high-win" squares may give you an advantage,
but only in straight bingo. That system may not do you any good if you're
playing an H pattern, for instance.
Also, you may not be free to choose the game cards. In that case, of course, no
mathematical system would help you win. We should add that it could be very
frustrating if you have your heart set on a certain configuration of certain
numbers. It's been calculated that there are 111,007,923,832,370,565 possible
configurations of those twenty - four numbered squares!
All in all, whatever may be said about bingo, it remains basically a lottery.
Consider the following definition:
A lottery is any scheme for the disposal or distribution of property, by chance,
among persons who have paid or promised to pay any valuable consideration for
the chance of obtaining such property, or a portion of it, or for any such
property upon any agreement, understanding, or expectation that it is to be
distributed or disposed of by lot or chance, by whatever name the same shall be
known.
A lot of legal mumbo-jumbo, but that description certainly applies to bingo: a
game of chance.
(If you're curious, that passage is from the gaming laws for Nevada-where
millions play bingo for money every year. Go figure!)
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