If you’re into lottery style games of chance you should give Banko a try. After taking a look at the Money Wheel we had a taste for a casual game in which you can play for free in return for a chance to win real prizes. Money Wheel is a very basic game where you pick a set of numbers and see if they’ll win you some points, Banko is a bingo-style game where your chances to win build over time and often result in making a choice to risk your winnings for a chance to win more (much like Deal or No Deal in that aspect).

I found Banko to be a bit more interesting than Money Wheel because you feel like you’re progressing through the game in a more visual way rather then picking some numbers and seeing if you win. I’m also familiar with how Bingo plays so it was a bit more comfortable of an experience; numbers are called and you’ve got to match a line of numbers on your little board to win. Banko adds several twists to the bingo-style game play by allowing you to win in a four-corners call, a standard bingo call, matching a pattern on your board or what is known as “banko” which consists of completing your entire board.

In Banko, you’re given a random card with a random pattern and you sit through a series of “calls” where chips of varying number and letter are drawn at random. Typical bingo has a set number of “calls” which chips are randomly drawn while in Banko this value is anywhere between 30 and 70 unique calls, giving you many chances of paring something up on your card. This catch? You know there are at least 30 calls but you don’t know how many after the 30th! If you’ve hit bingo by matching a full line of numbers on call 31 you can risk your winnings and continue through some random number of calls, it might be 32, 40 or even 70 but you don’t know until you choose to continue play. Add to this the ability to win in multiple ways and you can find yourself “risking it all” for higher point payout.

Once the game starts the first call is made, every few seconds another call will be made and you sit back and relax while hoping for your magic numbers. Your chance for winning money or points goes down every 10 calls until you reach the 41st call when the winnings raise higher again. The winning score system seems to be based on the bell curve, early on the chances of hitting bingo, banko, four corners or the pattern are rare so the prize money/points will be higher then gradually become cheaper and less exciting towards the middle of the game and, if you’re lucky to get a game which calls out to 70, the winnings will increase again.

To understand it better, the score sheet lists the winning values each time you hit a successful match.

As it’s plain to see, you really want to win up-front when the calls are low because the payout is big and the chances are rare. Although winning on a call of 61 or even 70 pays huge you have no idea how many calls you’ll get as each call above 30 ticks by.

You’re a winner! It’s not too hard to get a bingo call or a four corners call between call 30 to 40, however they’re only worth 10-points. Once you’ve won Banko will ask you if you’re willing to risk it all to continue the calls (until the last ‘random’ call is made). If you continue there is a chance you’ll walk away with no points, but if your board is already partially complete you may win a pattern match or one of the other styles of winning before the game ends. My goal is to get a four corners match and a bingo match to score at least 20-points but all too often I risk it all for nothing.

To rub it in, if you choose to cash-out and not continue Banko will, much like Deal or No Deal, play the rest of the game out to see what you could have won–it can be depressing.

The ultimate goal to Banko is much like that of Money Wheel, you want to build up as many points as possible so you can try and win real cash and prizes. Since both games utilize the same user profile you can attempt to accrue as many points as possible in both games, I just prefer Banko but find myself playing both to maximize my points. Thus far I’ve been able to buy two Apple iPod Touch lottery tickets (1,500 points each) for a drawing early this month–wish me luck, hopefully I’ll win!

If you want to try your hand at winning cash and prizes you can check it out yourself.