Chat Room Rules

All our free bingo games have chat rooms where you can chat and talk to other players.

We pride ourselves on having the friendliest chat rooms, and we would like to keep them that way, which is why we expect all players to follow our rules of chat.

Failure to follow these simple rules may result in your chat privileges being removed.

The Golden Rules of Chat

1. Be nice to players – if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say it.
2. Be nice to chat hosts – they are all volunteers and deserve our thanks and support.
3. Don’t promote other sites – our advertisers pay the bills, so the games are kept free.

Stick to these three simple rules and you can’t go wrong.

What does ‘being nice’ actually mean?

Put very simply, we expect all players to refrain from any kind of chat that could be described as either abusive, threatening, harmful, defamatory, vulgar, racially or sexually offensive, bullying or libellous.

We particularly do not wish to see any swearing or sexually explicit language used.

There is a swear filter which blocks offensive words. Any players who deliberately mis-spell offensive words to avoid the filter may be muted.

We also do not wish to see players deliberately flooding the chat with spam or harassing players who have chosen to turn chat off or ignore an individual.

What is ‘spam’?

Spam is when a player posts lots of text to the chat repeatedly, so that it floods the chat window. An example of this would be someone pressing the ‘WD’ (well done) button over and over again so it fills the entire screen.

Players who persistently spam our chat rooms deliberately will be muted.

What does ‘muted’ mean?

Being ‘muted’  basically means your chat will no longer be visible to other players.

All our chat hosts have the authority to mute players, and they will do so if they feel a player is not adhering to our rules of chat.

Muting is almost always used as a first punishment for any player who does not obey our rules of chat.

What happens if I am muted?

If you are muted, you can still play all our free bingo and slot games, but you will be unable to join in with any chat.

If you wish to have your chat restored, you can email help@freebingo.co.uk and we will review our chat records to see why you were muted.

Depending on the specific reason you were muted, an apology and assurance that it won’t happen again should normally result in your chat being restored.

However, in more serious cases such as extremely abusive language, we may choose not to restore your chat for a longer period of time, if at all.

Can I block someone or turn chat off?

If you wish to block the chat from any individual, you can place that person on ‘ignore’ by clicking once on their name from the player list. Clicking their name a second time if you wish to un-ignore.

The entire chat window can be removed by selecting the ‘chat off’ button in the majority of bingo games.

If someone chooses to ‘ignore’ you, we expect you to respect that decision and not to harass or criticise them for doing so.

How do I report a player for breaking these rules?

If you wish to make a complaint about any players, please email help@freebingo.co.uk and remember to include their username, as well as the date, time and bingo room in which the incident took place.

We will then look back through the chat records to see what was said, and make any appropriate retrospective punishments to that player if we deem it necessary.

If you need more immediate assistance with a problem player, we advise trying to find one of our chat hosts who may be on duty in one of the rooms. If a chat host is on duty, there will be a ‘chat host’ logo on the room they are currently in.

If you cannot find a chat host to help you, you can always place that player on ignore .

Bingo Chat Tips & Advice

- We would advise players not to give out personal information in the chat rooms, as anyone could see it. If you really need to do so, we advise you do it via private messaging.

- Please don’t assume that a player is being rude if they don’t respond to you in chat. Not everyone is comfortable chatting. Some players may have their chat switched off, they may have a technical problem that is preventing them from chatting or they may even have a disability that makes it difficult for them to type.

- Please do not make other players feel bad about being on a winning streak. Just like a real bingo hall, players will have good and bad runs of luck and it is unfair to the winner to complain if they win and you do not. Your lucky streak may just be around the corner.

- The chat rooms are a public experience, therefore it should not be worded in any way to exclude anyone else from the conversation. This means you should avoid speaking in ‘code’ and speaking in any language other than English.

- Please have respect for the chat host’s decisions when playing chat games. Due to varying internet speeds, the order of chat that they see on their screens may not match your own. This sometimes leads to players thinking they have won, and then being disappointed when the chat host awards to the prize to someone else. Please do not argue with the chat host or accuse them of cheating as this often causes offence. If you wish to contest any chat game outcome, you can contact help@freebingo.co.uk and we will look at our official chat records.