This week the biggest sporting tournament in the world kicks off and you’d have had to be living the life of a hermit not to know that the 2014 FIFA World Cup is taking place in Brazil. Everyone and everything, it seems, has turned into a World Cup version of itself, and bingo’s no exception.
Many of the different bingo sites are offering a choice of World Cup themed games that you can enjoy during the build-up to the matches, or on the days that there aren’t any real World Cup games taking place.
Winner Bingo has a blog where you can keep up to date on the latest headlines while you’re playing bingo. Currently Winner has a great bingo bonus for new players to take advantage of when they first sign up to the site. A new player only needs to deposit £10 during the first week of registering on the site and they will automatically qualify for a £40 bonus. Of this, £30 can be used to play bingo, while the other £10 can be used on the other gaming categories on the site – which includes a wide range of casino games.
And at Tidy Bingo, there’s a World Cup 2014 Sweepstake that any registered players who deposited a certain amount during May and June could take part in. Each participating player was allocated a footballing nation and if their allocated team wins the World Cup, the bingo players will receive a credit of £15 into their account the day after the World Cup Final.
Bingomania, meanwhile, has its own tournament for its players to enjoy. Each participating bingo player has been allocated a football player who may win the Golden Boot challenge. There are small prizes following any score by a team in a participating player’s allocated group, and then there will be a total of £1,000 in prizes for holding one of the top four teams in the
World Cup. If a Bingomania player has the winning team they will take a share of a £500 cash bonus, and there’s a smaller prize fund for the runners up, third place and fourth place teams. But if a participating player has not only the winning team, but also the striker who is named winner of the Golden Boot, they will an extra £50 in cash.
You can even devise your own bingo games around the World Cup, to play throughout the tournament while you’re watching the coverage . Give each member of the family a card with a selection of different players on it. When the players on their cards score a goal during the tournament, they can be marked – until the card holder has a full house. What you have as the prize, of course, is up to you as a family, but the main fun is in playing the game while you watch the different matches.
Players you could include on your bingo cards include Lionel Messi who plays for Argentina. Although Messi was a prominent player in the 2010 World Cup, he failed to score a goal during that tournament. But in 83 games for Argentina, Messi has scored 37 goals, so there’s every reason to expect him to score at some point in Brazil. Another Argentinian player who has a great World Cup goals’ record is Gonzalo Higuain. From 36 caps, he’s scored 21 goals, which means he is averaging 0.6 goals per game for his country. In the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Higuain scored a total of four goals.
Neymar is Brazil’s hope for the Golden Boot. In the Confederations Cup last year, he scored four goals and won the golden ball for being the best player in the tournament.
Cristiano Ronaldo is another name that everyone would want to have on their bingo card. The Portuguese player has already scored eight goals in the qualifiers leading up to the World Cup, including four when playing Sweden in the play-offs. He has the record of best all-time scorer for Portugal, having scored 49 goals during 100 games for his country.
Luis Suarez, meanwhile is Uruguay’s all-time goal scorer. From 77 caps, he has scored 38 goals and during the South America qualifiers for this year’s event, Suarez scored 11 goals, making him the top scorer.
Just make sure you divide the top players evenly when you’re drawing up the World Cup bingo cards – so that everyone playing has a fighting chance of claiming that full house!
