For: 10 Free bingo games for cash prizes, generous sign-up bonus, good caller, jackpot on every game

Against: Software not quite as sophisticated as on other 90 ball bingo websites.

Crown Bingo is a relative newcomer to the online bingo scene, and although lots of players already take part in their games, Crown Bingo have a whole host of great offers for new players - including ten free bingo games for cash prizes! The name should be familiar to many UK bingo players in the south of England, but we should point out that they are a different company from the bingo halls of the same name.

Signing up to play at is simple, and upon signing up, you instantly get your ten free bingo games! Although other sites offer free bingo, these are usuallly only for fun or prize points - but here you'll be playing free bingo for an actual cash prize! And Crown Bingo's generosity doesn't end there either. It's simple to make a deposit, and the minimum deposit required is £10, which is also the minimum withdrawal permitted, which is pretty standard for the online bingo game industry. However, where they do excell is in its sign-up bonus. Some online bingo sites offer a very low cash match bonus (that is, when the website gives you the equivalent of your first deposit as a thank you for joining), and some offer none at all, but this site will match your first deposit up to £250! We think that this is very good value indeed.

The bingo software on the Crown Bingo website is provided by Virtue Fusion, a uK company who also supply Mecca Bingo with their bingo gaming software. This allows you to play up to six strips of bingo tickets at a time, and the software was recently changed a little, so that you can now watch all the tickets you have in play - previously, you could only watch one strip at a time, so this is a big improvement. Games cost between 5p and 50p a ticket, and the prize money reflects the different prices. Unlike Mecca, they offer a progressive jackpot across all of their bingo games, and it can be won by anyone who manages to get a full house in 48 numbers or less. We like this, as some other bingo websites offer jackpots that are nearly impossible to win - we think that their jackpot is very fair indeed!

As with the Mecca bingo website, it's not really worth bothering with manual card dobbing - just let the game play itself! You can't turn off the card highlights, and even on manual dab the number called get highlighted. Also, do bear in mind that the Virtue Fusion software isn't compatible with some of the more unusual browsers like Firefox - we recommend that you use internet explorer to play the games here.

The bingo caller is also very special. To call their bingo games they have chosen Karl Seth, who should be familiar to bingo hall visitors as Bingo Caller of the Year 2005. Karl normally calls the numbers at the Buckingham bingo club in Old Trafford, Manchester, and it is great to hear such a big name in the world of bingo calling the numbers, as most of us would not normally get the chance to hear Karl in person.