One day I'll win a jackpot - Tombola Onle Bingo (tombola.co.uk)

Member Name: starjen

Product:	tombola.co.uk
Date:	06/05/09 (91 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, variety of games and prices

Disadvantages: Be prepared to lose your money

One of my secret guilty pleasures is sometimes playing online bingo! Over the years I've tried a few sites with the bonus offers you get to sign up but my favourite and now the only one I really use is Tombola. I don't spend a lot, unlike some people who you see writing that they they've spent hundreds in a day, but I do win fairly regularly - although they generally get it back!

=== The Look and Navigation ===

The site is very bright and colourful and very easy to work your way around. At the top of the page you can access your account to credit and withdraw funds, and also access help and contact the customer service. Your balance is also shown here. Down the left of the page are all the games you can play and to right advertising - like at the moment they are giving away £5 play money to everyone just by entering a promo code that was emailed out. In the middle is news segments which are updated every few days which include recent jackpot winners and any game updates.

=== Registering ===

I joined when it was Sun bingo but I imagine it is still just as easy. You need to give your usual information like name, email and set up a username which appears when you win and in the chat rooms, you will also need to register card details to fund gaming. The minimum you can deposit and withdraw is £10 (some bingo sites are a minimum of £30 to withdraw which I don't like).

At the moment when you register and deposit they will match what you put on up to £25, so if you put on £10 they give you £10 free.

== The Games ==

This is of course the most important part of the site and what keeps me coming back to Tombola.

=== Bingo ===

They have your normal Bingo 90 games which cost 10p a ticket, or 50p a strip up to a maximum of £4 for 4 strips. There is also a jackpot, which at the moment is £2178.27p but I have seen it go up way higher which you can win if you call in 40 numbers or less - I have never won any jackpot on the site unfortunately, but you never know! They also have Bingo Lite which is a 90's game but only 1 line and full house and tickets are 2p each or 10p a strip up to 40p for 4 strips so your money can last much longer if you play in here and the jackpot is still £100.

Your tickets are shown in the middle of the screen with numbers being called to the left and the chat room to the right. Only the tickets doing best will be shown and it is nice and clear, not all squished up like some sites.

There is a link game every half hour where all the rooms (15 to choose from) link up and so the prize money is much bigger but obviously there is a lot more people playing.

They also have Bingo 80 and 75. Bingo 80 is the little boards you get at real bingo where you cover the numbers, this is 25p a board up to 4 boards. What I love about this (I know I'm sad!) is that when the game ends your board tips back so all the sliding number covers slip back!

Bingo 75 is where you have to cover a shape like a cross, this is 10p a ticket up to £2 max.

== Other games ==

What I like best about Tombola is that it is not just Bingo that they have, but they don't have fruit machines which I think is great as otherwise you can lose so much money playing on them.

My favourite game on this site (and the one I win on the most) is Cinco. I play in the 10p rooms and it is 10p a line, max of 5 lines, where you are given 5 cards on each line. The cards are then drawn one at a time and it's the first person to match all the cards on one line who wins.

The newest game they have added in the past couple of weeks is Bingo roulette, which you can buy up to 4 lots of 8 chips (10p for 8 chips) and then the ball spins and lands on a number and it's the first person to get rid of all 8 chips.

There is also roller coaster when you buy a roller coaster car for 25p (max 4 cars) and then a roller coaster starts and the little heads inside all fall off one at a time and it's the first person to fill a coaster car who wins.

Hamster race is just what it sounds like, you bet on a hamster to win a race. They style the Hamsters up like movie stars or singers sometimes too.

Bandit is another game. This has four rooms 10p, 50p, £1 or £2. I go in the 10p room and it costs10p a game. The bandit spins 15 times and like a real fruit machine you either get nothing or a winning spin. Each winning spin is worth so many points and the person at the top of the leader board after 15 spins wins the game.

There is a daily free game which at the moment is freefall. Each day you go in and 4 planes fly across the screen and you click on them and the little tombola heads fly out and then you match them on a grid and if you match so many in a row you win free cash. I haven't won on this game but I have won a tenner on their last free game, and £20 on the free Xmas game.

== Chat ==

Every room and game has a chat room where you can chat to other players. I don't chat that often but when I do people seem friendly and welcoming. There are Chat Moderators (CM's) which pop in to the rooms to chat to people and answer any questions and also they do quizzes every so often, where you can win a £1 for answering a general knowledge question right.

== My Recommendation ===
I really enjoy this site and the variety of the games they have. I also feel the prices are pretty reasonable as you can play as cheaply or pricey as you want to - me I'm a cheapster and mainly play 10p Cinco with 3 lines, Bingo lite for 20p and 10p bandit and roulette. So do I win? Well, unless I'm lucky enough to ever win a jackpot I'm never going to win big but as I only ever put the odd £10 on I'm always pleased when I win £20 as I can play a bit longer and keep the jackpot dreams alive! I have cashed out money and over Christmas/New Year I cashed out £75 after my initial £10 deposit as I managed to have quite a few wins which is always nice.

I think as long as your sensible and see it for what is and don't mind losing the money you've put on it can be an enjoyable form of gambling and you never know you may win either your money back or a big jackpot.

Summary: Great Bingo site with a great choice of games