Bingo in Thai

Getting into a game

You do not join a bingo game in Thailand; you are handed one. A sheet lands on your table at the company งานเลี้ยงปีใหม่ (ngaan-líang bpii-mài), the New Year party that every Thai company throws, or at a school fair, a hotel activity hour, a community centre afternoon. If sheets are being given out, take a second: ขออีกใบได้ไหมครับ (khǎw ìik bai dâi mǎi khráp), could I have another one. The sheet is counted in ใบ (bai), the classifier that takes tickets, licences and forms — not แผ่น (phàen), which is the one for plain sheets of paper — and two sheets are twice the listening practice.

You will need something to mark with. ขอปากกาหน่อยครับ (khǎw bpàak-gaa nàwy khráp), could I borrow a pen. Some sets are stiff boards with sliding windows and no pen involved at all, so glance at what the table next to you is doing before you start looking for one.

Then ask two questions before the first number leaves the microphone, because afterwards there is no gap to ask in. First: รอบนี้เอาแบบไหนครับ (râwp níi ao bàep nǎi khráp), what are we playing for this round. รอบ (râwp) is a round of anything — a round of a competition, a lap, a bus service. The answer will be one of แนวนอน (naew nawn), a horizontal line, แนวตั้ง (naew dtâng), a column, แนวทแยง (naew thá-yaeng), a diagonal, or the whole sheet, เต็มใบ (dtem bai).

Second, and this is the one that decides your evening: พูดช้า ๆ หน่อยได้ไหมครับ ผมฟังเลขไม่ทันครับ (phûut cháa-cháa nàwy dâi mǎi khráp, phǒm fang lêek mâi than khráp), could you go a bit slower, I can't keep up with the numbers. ไม่ทัน (mâi than) after a verb means not in time, not fast enough — ฟังไม่ทัน (fang mâi than) is the exact complaint, and it is a normal thing for a Thai to say too. An MC asked this before the first round will slow down, repeat, and often start watching your face for it. The same MC asked ten numbers in, with the room hot and a prize on the table, will not.

Then sit where the speaker is clear rather than where your friends are. On this one evening, that is the trade worth making.

How a round goes

One person at a microphone draws numbers at random and reads each one aloud, once. You find it on your grid and mark it. That is the whole game, and it is why an evening of it buys you more Thai listening than a month of an app.

The caller frames the number with หมายเลข (mǎai-lêek), number, or drops the frame and just says the bare เลข (lêek) — so the instant you hear either, the next thing out of the microphone is the only part that matters and everything after it is padding. Some sets have the letters B I N G O across the columns and the caller reads a letter first; plenty of Thai party sets have no letters at all. Plan on getting the bare number and treat a letter as a bonus.

Two places in the Thai number system will cost you squares. Every number ending in one takes เอ็ด (èt) from eleven upwards, never หนึ่ง (nèung) — สิบเอ็ด (sìp-èt) eleven, ยี่สิบเอ็ด (yîi-sìp-èt) twenty-one, สามสิบเอ็ด (sǎam-sìp-èt) thirty-one, all the way up your sheet — and เอ็ด is short, unstressed and the first thing a bad PA swallows. Only the bare number one is หนึ่ง. And twenty is ยี่สิบ (yîi-sìp), never สองสิบ (sǎwng-sìp), which means every twenty-something on your card is announced by a syllable a lot of learners have never drilled. At speed, ยี่สิบเอ็ด and สิบเอ็ด differ by that one swallowed ยี่ (yîi), and they are both on your card.

The rescue is not to ask for a repeat, which costs the room a beat and marks you out. It is to say the number back with a question on it: ยี่สิบเอ็ดใช่ไหมครับ (yîi-sìp-èt châi mǎi khráp), twenty-one, was it. Or to name both candidates and let the caller pick: สิบเอ็ดหรือยี่สิบเอ็ดครับ (sìp-èt rěu yîi-sìp-èt khráp). Callers answer both of those without breaking their rhythm, because Thais ask them too.

To check whether a number has already gone, the verb is ออก (àwk), to come out: เลขนี้ออกไปหรือยังครับ (lêek níi àwk bpai rěu yang khráp), has this one come out yet. It is the lottery's verb, and it is the single most transferable word on this page.

When your shape is complete you shout บิงโก and stand up. The MC will say ขอดูหน่อยครับ (khǎw duu nàwy khráp), let me see — hand the sheet over rather than reading the numbers out. Then either the prize, ของรางวัล (khǎwng raang-wan), comes across the room, or you get ยังไม่ครบครับ (yang mâi khróp khráp), not complete yet, and you sit back down. ครบ (khróp), complete, and ครับ (khráp) differ by a single vowel, and mishearing one for the other in a loud room is how people stay standing with a grin on their face for a second too long.

Then a new shape is announced on the same sheet, which is why the MC keeps saying อย่าเพิ่งทิ้งนะครับ (yàa phôeng thíng ná khráp), don't throw it away yet.

What you say

What you will hear

The half that decides whether you can play. You do not have to say these; you have to catch them.

Watch out

Standing up on a diagonal in a round that was called for horizontal lines only. The shape is announced once, fast, in a single sentence at the top of the round — รอบนี้เอาแนวนอนนะครับ (râwp níi ao naew nawn ná khráp), this round it's a horizontal line — and it is the sentence you are least likely to catch, because you are still looking down at your sheet from the round before. So you shout, the room turns round, the MC checks and says ยังไม่ครบ (yang mâi khróp), not complete, and you sit down. The cost is not the prize. It is that most foreigners then stay quiet for the rest of the evening, which throws away the only hour of fast-number listening anybody is ever going to give you. Ask รอบนี้เอาแบบไหนครับ (râwp níi ao bàep nǎi khráp), what are we playing for this round, out loud at the top of every single round, to the person beside you rather than the microphone. Nobody minds being asked, and plenty of the Thais at your table missed it too.

How it is really played here

Bingo is not a Thai tradition and does not pretend to be one. It is a piece of party equipment, and in Thailand it turns up wherever there is a microphone, a prize table and a room that has to be entertained. The reliable one is the company New Year party, where bingo sits alongside จับฉลาก (jàp chà-làak), the lucky draw and gift exchange every Thai office runs, and where you may be handed a numbered slip for one and a grid for the other within the same hour. After that: school fairs, hotel and resort activity hours, community and elderly-club afternoons, and English classrooms, where it is the standard number drill for exactly the reason it works on you. The prizes are objects on a table — ของรางวัล (khǎwng raang-wan) — and not cash, and that is deliberate rather than mean. Money riding on a number game is gambling, gambling is illegal, so a rice cooker is what you win. The other half of what comes out of the speaker is not the game at all. Thai events run on a พิธีกร (phí-thii-gawn), an MC, and a bingo caller is doing a comedy set with numbers in it: jokes, a running commentary on who is close, somebody's name pulled out to be teased. Expect most of the microphone to be things you do not need, with the number buried somewhere inside. Learning to wait for หมายเลข and let the rest wash past is a genuine skill, and it transfers to every announcement in the country. Where bingo pays off outside the room is หวย (hǔay), the lottery, drawn twice a month and discussed in every shop in Thailand on the day. The verb is the same one — ออก — a draw is a งวด (ngûat), and once you can catch numbers called at speed you can join the only small talk in this country that is genuinely nationwide.