Honest sites?

[PookiePoodle]

I have been involved in the bingo world for quite some time now. A select few will remember me from forums now defunct, as well as forums that are still kicking.
You have to be your own watchdog with bingo sites. If you deposit at a site 2 times and never win a game, run! After 2 deposits you may not cash out, but you should have a win if not a few. That is one tried and true rule of thumb I have always used.
Do you get responce from management? Also a rule to follow. When contacting support you must be getting a responce within 2 business days, 3 for a smaller operator at most.
There will aways be someone who wins what seems a lot of times. I have found with sites meeting my other standards, that this is the norm. Sometimes you just get lucky or you are spending way too much by maxing out and in the end not really winning.
Don't air your complaints for a site in the chat room, EVER! If you get banned, I feel no sympathy. I have never been banned from any chat. Forward your complaints to support or the hall manager. See rule of thumb above about responce.
Ask people you trust about bingo sites. If you don't know anyone personally who plays bingo, read forums like this. Check into the ones responding to you on any forum. Do they have a lot of complaints they never come back and let you know if it is resolved? If so you may want to take their advice without a grain of salt. Have they previously been involved in long disputes never settled? There are people who post on forums who may not be trustworthy. It may take a lot of reading but worth your time if it saves you money.
Go with a portal that has been around for some time that does help the people they send to a site. Dominique and Bingo T are 2 I know of that have done this service.
If you think a poster here or anywhere is trustworthy, and has played honestly, by all means ask their advice, but in the end trust yourself. Determine your expectations and your own rules of thumb before you deposit. Also any good site does not have more than 1x playthough on bingo, but look out for casino games as they are generally 12x.
If slots or cards are your thing, play them at a casino not a bingo hall.
Hope this is useful information for anyone in search of a good play.

[chuchu59]

I rarely play bingo and even when I did it was from free money. Never cashed out even when I won an odd thirty of forty bux or so. Actually, I agree with most of your advice except the one concerning complaints in the chat room. That's where you share your grievances with other players. If the operators are so unaccomodating and get people banned for complaining, then it is worthwhile pondering whether you should actually continue playing at the site in question.

[lots0]

I agree, if they bann you because you complained in a chat room and your not being a rude vulgar ass...

Then you really should find somewhere else to play.

[BingoT]

Thank You My PookiePoodle.
Great post.
When it comes to chat in a game I say never talk your dirty Laundry this is why they have Email addresses to the Bingo Manager and so on.
And this goes with all the chat going on.No one needs to see this crap.
Or if you join a place from an affiliate ask he/she for some help.And too find one you know you can trust also that would take part.
At times if I see people talking trash at places I leave No one has to see a Jerry Springer chat session going on.
People go play to relax & to have fun.

[Sassy1]

Thanks for the good advice PookiePoodle! It is so hard to know where to play and who to trust in this recent climate, including some watchdog sites. The comments here seem honest and rational, but I've recently been viewing a site that makes rash decisions without doing enough research and posting lists of suspected house players with no evidence and upsetting those people on the lists. These lists even hold comments about the personality of some of the suspected house players like, "house player and she's stuck on herself." Some of that stuff is just uncalled for and very unprofessional. I'll be coming here for advice from now on.

[BingoT]

Sassy1 can you tell all the readers here where you have found your findings?
I think all the Bingo Players Of The World would like to know.
I hate to put you on the spot.I just think people should know.
Thank You

[Sassy1]

Sassy1 can you tell all the readers here where you have found your findings?
I think all the Bingo Players Of The World would like to know.
I hate to put you on the spot.I just think people should know.
Thank You

I'm going to assume that since you are a long-timer here, you know it is acceptable to respond? If it wasn't appropriate for me to respond, I won't take offense to my answer being edited out. It's the Bingo Player's Union.

[BingoT]

I'm going to assume that since you are a long-timer here, you know it is acceptable to respond? If it wasn't appropriate for me to respond, I won't take offense to my answer being edited out. It's the Bingo Player's Union.

I thank you and I feel Byran should not edit it out.
The people that play online bingo should know.
They don't like me at all but they still use My quotes and Dom's in some threads.
I learned to just leave them alone because life is to short.

[NAVYMANS-MOM]

There are two sides to every business.....the owner and the customers.

First....the owner of a business ALSO has to deal with owners of OTHER businesses in order to survive, such as paper suppliers, utility companies, parts stores, etc. So that owner is ALSO a CUSTOMER to somebody else.

Second....that owner has to COMPETE with other owners in the SAME business in order to get customers and make a profit, so he has to be fair and reasonably priced and diplomatic in dealing with his customers in order to keep them from going to his competitors. If he took orders from those customers and their payments, but then never delivered the goods or treated his customers as if THEY were the thieves, that owner would not only be out of business, but in jail somewhere charged with fraud and theft.

Bingo sites may not be regulated but they still have to run the risk of losing their one and only database of paying customers or they are out of business because their customers go to their competition.

NOW.....think of yourself as an OWNER, because you really ARE.

You risk your own capital in order to make more....just like a business does. Every person sitting 'next to you' in a bingo hall is your COMPETITOR vying for the same capital you are. You try to spend as little as possible and still make a profit. THAT'S a business, people....and ALL businesses are GAMBLING every day, just like you.

It doesn't matter if you and your competitors 'go to dinner' socially....YOU ARE STILL COMPETING FOR THE SAME PRIZE...and therefore, that competitor can only be trusted so far. After all, there's MONEY involved and both of you want it in your own pocket. Coming in first ALWAYS is better than losing your capital every time to your competitors or you wouldn't be playing the game in the first place. Only a small handful of people in the world get into business in order to make friends....they do it to make MONEY. Make sure you never take your eye off that ball.

Now....if you suspect that SOME of your competitors have some type of 'edge' and they consistently get the prize you covet with a 'bone' being tossed in your direction every so often to keep you investing your capital, do you keep with this same business owner or do you hunt for a new one that will be more fair to its customers? Do you REALLY stay with a business that you KNOW will keep giving most of its business to your competitors just because you THINK you have developed a type of social friendliness with those competitors? After all, YOU are in business also and are risking all your capital....for a competitor's 'friendship'?????

This is YOUR business at risk......isn't it worth protecting and nurturing by moving on to a better environment for it? Wouldn't it be prudent of you as the OWNER of your business to find another business owner who treats ALL of its customers equally and gives you a level playing field to compete against?

Since online bingo sites aren't listed with a local Better Business Bureau, you have no way to check on a site ahead of time to know if they are out and out crooks, a little bit shady with only a 'few' complaints, or if they have gone out of their way to build a great reputation.

The ONLY way is to do a couple of things....

1. RESEARCH the site by doing a google search for complaints against them....and find out as much as you can about the owners and the sister sites they have so you don't make the mistake of signing up at the sisters and jeopardize your account by creating multiple accounts without intending to do so.

2. Join a site, open chat, bet the smallest amount you are able to in order to get into a game (normally 3 cards) and watch a few things, such as a pattern of frequent winners names, how many are purchasing cards (there is usually a list of players that is separate from the list of chatters, and how large the per game pots are, in addition to the jackpot amount that normally is progressive and gets larger per game until it's hit. The number of players will include Out Of Chat and Pre-buyers so that tells you how many you are actually competing against. The number of chatters doesn't mean much since many sites will combine the chat rooms into one huge room if they have other rooms playing at the same time for different per game amounts.

3. Watch the chat conversations....you'll learn quickly if there is a clique of players and what their 'relationship' is with the Host of the room....other than being welcomed to the room, are you pretty much ignored most of the time, do you have to ask for help two or three times before you are 'noticed' again? Are most of your questions being referred by the Host to put in a trouble ticket or to go to LiveHelp or to send an email to some management person instead of the Host actually being knowledgeable enough to help you and not make you trip all over the site trying to get answers to something she/he should already know the answer to? NEVER be afraid to ask a question....it's YOUR money that could be at stake, not THEIRS, and you deserve a correct answer.

4. If you are in Live Help, a chatroom, sending a TT, or sending an email, ALWAYS, ALWAYS copy and paste your question AND the answer to a NOTEPAD text file and SAVE it.....believe me, you WILL need it one day when you least expect it. Make sure you have it dated and that you have the NAME of the person who gave you the information so you have ammunition to fight with if you need to. If you can't copy/paste using the mouse and right click, you can still scroll to highlight with the mouse and then press CTRL and C on the keyboard to COPY, then open Notepad and either use Edit/Paste or use CTRL and V to paste it. The KEYBOARD trick ALWAYS works even when a site tries to disable copy/paste using the mouse. I've only found ONE site that was able to script their chat to where you couldn't copy/paste no matter what, BUT if you know how to type, and you can scroll backwards in the chat, you can still retype it into Notepad manually as you scroll....making sure to use the NAMES and then date the text file before you save it. If you still can't figure out how to get the job done, USE A SCREENSHOT of the page with the conversation....press the PRINT SCREEN key on your keyboard, open PAINT, Edit, Paste, and save it as a JPG file.

5. Last and most important.....GO WITH YOUR GUT FEELING ABOUT THE SITE. If something just doesn't ring true or feel right, remember this is YOUR business and capital. Find another site that fits better for you personally....just like a land bingo site, it takes a while to find the one where you feel better about playing at than the first couple of places you tried. Even land bingo sites know how to cheat their paying customers...especially when it comes to pull tabs. Each box is marked ahead of time with where in the box the large payoff tabs are located and unless that box is shuffled in a hopper, the sellers know where to get those winners for friends, shills, or even remove them completely so the house never has to pay out on them. Software online is even easier to manipulate.

Now do the math:

This is an example of the way the math works at online bingo sites today and why we need to fight to get the sites to understand why we're so upset with their rules.

You deposit $50 at XYZ bingo site and go into the quarter room to play:

You and everybody else in the room buys 25 cards PER GAME...that comes to $6.25 each and there are 40 people in the room buying cards whether they are in chat or not. That comes to $250 total purchase and the game itself has a $50 fixed pot. Instant profit for the bingo site equals $200 PER GAME.

Now add to that profit, the unrealistic PER DEPOSIT playthrough rule (bingo ONLY remember....no inflated playthrough for casino games which are totally separate at every site). The playthrough rule could be 'only' 3x the deposit, which means you are required to spend at least $150 before you can cash out....or it could also include a 3x the deposit PLUS the deposit bonus you received which means if that bonus was 200% of the deposit, you are now required to wager at least ($50 + $100 X 3) $450 before you can cash out.

Also, keep in mind that at most sites....once you request a cashout, ALL bonuses are wiped out and erased (whether your cash out is approved or NOT) BUT YOU ARE STILL REQUIRED TO MEET THE PLAYTHROUGH REQUIREMENTS IMPOSED ON THEM.

Also, keep in mind while you are playing.....ALL purchasing of cards comes out of your cash first and not your bonus.

Also, keep in mind, that most sites will NOT let you cash out if you are playing casino games with bonus money, EVEN IF THEY LET YOU PLAY WITH THAT BONUS MONEY (there are some sites that has software that will stop you from spending bonus money on casino games....there are some that will actually let you play with the bonus money but use that rule as a 'gotcha' if you hit big on the slots and decline your cashout).

Also, keep in mind that even if you have cash in your account, and you are playing bingo and slots at the same time, your playthrough rules are immediately changed to not be 3X or 4X the bingo anymore....you are now required to meet the CASINO playthrough rules which can be as high as 12X your deposit (PLUS the deposit and/or chat games bonuses).

And these sites can't understand why knowledgeable players are fighting back to get the rules changed through regulation. Now you know why they are also disabling accounts for members who speak up....they NEED to keep the membership they have completely in the dark and stupid to these rules, people. The more educated we are, the more we pass the word, the worse they look and the broker they will get because we are slowly but surely eating them alive. We are hitting them where they hurt the most....their pockets. Soon, if we keep fighting the fight, all that will be in those pockets is lint and dust.......except for the very few that will finally see the light and make drastic changes that are actually fair to the very players they will desperately need.

[PookiePoodle]

Sorry Navy, I do not see myself gambling online as being a business. I am a recreational player with every intent of winning. That is why I follow my own rules of judging a site.
Also, I would never play anywhere that has more than a 1x playthrough on bingo. Been there and quickly determined it was too large an obstacle to my ultimate goal of cashing out. Right now I play at 3 that do not have more than 1x, and I have cashed out from 2 of them several times, the other I just started but I do win just haven't cashed out yet. I rarely touch the side games unless I have decided in advance I will probably not cash it out. Although I will say that I have cashed out playing keno even with the high playthrough.
If players want to effect change, you have to start by avoiding sites with playthrough higher than 1x on bingo, and telling the support of the site that the playthrough is the reason you are taking a pass on them. In my years of bingo and forums, I have found most complaints for cashout come from the players at high playthrough sites. I also think high playthrough makes it easier for a site to use house players. I am not a house player and never have been one, so I am not an expert on the workings of one.