Lets face it, real life bingo hall bingo is quite a bit different to the online game, but it has to be said that bingo websites do work pretty hard to give you as authentic experience as possible.
Yes, you actually can manually dab off your numbers if you feel so inclined, but be warned, its a bit fast and furious and you need to be pretty quick and nifty with your fingers or computer mouse.
However there is a safety blanket.
Bingo websites will still pay out if you win, even if you don’t manage to dab off all your numbers – basically manual dabbing is just for show online and doesn’t affect the game or outcome if you miss a number.
How To Set Up Manual Dabbing
Most bingo websites allow you to change between auto dabbing and manual dabbing and this is done through the settings option when you are inside a bingo room or within the bingo lobby.
There is most often a toggle switch that you move from auto to manual. There are also colour choices for dabbing your ticket and even your dabber shape.
Remember to change it back to your preference ready for the next time you want to play. I forgot once and I had forgotten that I had changed to manual dabbing and was ready with the big guns to complain to the bingo website. Glad I realised in the nick of time.
Manual Dabbing Desktop and Mobile
From my experience which does really cover most of the bingo websites and their different software providers, manual dabbing on your mobile just doesn’t seem to cut it just yet.
Online bingo players typically purchase a lot more tickets than if they were in a bingo hall so being able to keep track of all the tickets is a little bit impossible. You can do it on your mobile device and get those finger exercises in if you so choose.
There are some games when all players only purchase one ticket so I think these are the best placed online bingo games to enjoy manual dabbing on your phone, so that you can focus on just the one set of numbers. I think as online bingo develops more and more, hopefully we might see much better mobile device compatible options including manual dabbing.
My First Experience Of Manual Dabbing
I purchased 20 tickets on one of the bingo sites I happened to have some funds in (picked at random) and I set my dabber to manual…
As I have played more online bingo than real life bingo I started to get a bit fretty and sweaty at the prospect of what I was required to do. When the clock was counting down to the beginning of the game I was thinking, how on earth am I going to move my mouse quick enough to actually have my best shot at dabbing these tickets? Also, how am I going to be able to look at 20 tickets all in one go, especially as online bingo balls are called at a much faster rate than real life balls with a real life person?
What will it look like if I miss a number? But more importantly, what will it look like If I manage to actually dab a number myself? All these questions whirring around my head.
And breath, the game has begun. Phew, its OK because the numbers are actually dabbed off with a light yellow spot by the bingo software and if I manage to dab off the number manually, it will put a blue cross on the number as well. Thank goodness.
Unlike in automatic dabbing, the tickets do not move around with the first ticket being the one with the most numbers dabbed off; they stay fixed in position as if they are on a table. All 20 tickets where not on the screen at once though, there were only 6 in view at a time so I did have to scroll through. However it did highlight the ticket in a different colour if that ticket had the least numbers to dab off.
Below I managed to get a screen shoot (goodness knows how, because man I felt under pressure with my manual dabbing).
I was only looking at the ticket that was going to give me the best shot at winning. In my case I was focusing on the pink 1 to go ticket (above) and the green 3 to go ticket (above).
My Second Experience Of Manual Dabbing
I felt much more prepared this time, but I only purchased 6 tickets, to give myself a better chance (not at winning money but at winning the dabbing game!). However this was a totally different ball game. The computer didn’t also dab the numbers just in case you forgot. Shock horror.
As you can see below , at this point fairly early on in the game I had already missed 11 and 57. So really there was no hope for me. I frantically asked fellow players in the chat room if it mattered that I didn’t manage to dab a number and one player said that it was OK because you would still get a pay out if your tickets won. But obviously you don’t know if you have won until it flashes on screen.
I think both experiences of dabbing my own tickets were fun and got the bingo adrenaline flowing. Not sure if it will catch on for me because I do like to shout my numbers out and have a chat in the chat room. You can’t do it all.