Fast Track Bingo: Overall Concept

Fast Track Bingo is a network that is designed to offer an affordable alternative to full electronic bingo, while offering similar or greater revenue. The network of player positions is designed to play very fast and track all transactions.

Buying In

Fast Track Bingo uses credits to track all transactions. Credit values and the number of credits needed to play per card are set by each location individually. For example credits at ABC Bingo are 25 cents each and they charge 2 credits per card to play, thus the cost to play is 50 cents per card. While at DEF Dingo, credits are $1 each and they charge 1 credit per card to play, thus the cost to play is one dollar per card.

In order to play a patron summons any floor attendant as they normally would to buy bingo paper or coffee, the patron then requests to purchase Fast Track Bingo credits. the floor attendant enters the amount of credits the patron requested on their Portable Authorization Device or PAD and points the PAD at the electronic face at the patron's position and presses the enter button. The PAD communicates to the patron's position via infrared and the credits are authorized for that position, then the patron pays the floor attendant for the credits. The patron will see how many credits they received because the LCD display at their position will read how many they purchased. Likewise, if a patron wishes to leave and has credits still on their position, using the same process, the floor attendant can take the credits off that position and give the money back to the patron, effectively cashing them out.

Playing

In order to play the patron must first press the white "+" button and add a credit to credits in play for that game. Every time you hit the "+" button another credit is added to credits in play and takes one from the remaining credits. Likewise the white "-" button does the opposite, each time it is pushed it takes a credit from credits played and adds it back to remaining credits. the player can go back and forth as much as they want prior to a game, add credits or take away credits.

The patron can play up to three cards per game. As per our previous example ABC Bingo charges 2 credits per card, so 1 card would cost 2 credits or 50 cents, 2 cards would cost 4 credits or $1 and 3 cards would cost 6 credits or $1.50. Likewise DEF Bingo charges 1 credit per card at $1 per credit, so the cost for 1 card would $1, 2 cards would be $2 and 3 cards would be $3. Again the patron can choose how many they wish to play.

As patrons add and subtract credits for each game the network calculates the prize and displays it on an in-house monitor. This display is updated in real time. the prize payback amount is determined by each bingo facility.

Once the bingo caller starts the game the player is either locked in or locked out depending on what their status was when the caller activated the game. The player cannot do anything with white buttons during a game. The prize for that game is also locked in at that time.

The bingo game is called in the usual way, with the bingo caller calling the numbers that appear on the bingo balls coming from a traditional bingo blower machine. The patron tracks the numbers called by sliding the "shutter" to the right, across that number on each card, thus marking that number as called. The customer continues to mark their cards until they have covered the pattern needed for a good bingo. Once a player has achieved a good bingo they then hit the red "Hand" button. This button is to inform the caller you have a bingo, of course you can still yell bingo as well. When the red button is pushed, a message appears on the caller's computer that a particular position has a bingo. The winning bingo is verified and displayed on an in house monitor showing the winning seat number and the winning card. For those players out of the game the only button they can use during the game is the green help button.

When the caller ends the game, the winning player(s) will see their credits increase by the amount of their win and the credits that were played at each position are zeroed out and the process starts all over. The player then decides if they are playing the next game or not.

Reporting

Every transaction that occurs on the network is tracked, thus any conceivable report is possible. Most commonly used reports are floor attendant sales for reconciling and game summaries for revenue totals and reconciliation.

Summary

Fast Track Bingo is merely a means of tracking bingo games that are played in the traditional way. the caller calls the game the same and the patrons mark their cards as the numbers are called. Fast Track Bingo simply keeps track of who is participating in each game. this allows halls to run higher volume of games and track all transactions quickly and easily. With this ability they eliminate theft and skimming while becoming more profitable.