For those who are busy please skip to the winners at the end of this post, but if you want to re-live the excitement of the draw as I went through it just read on...

You can see all the details regarding the Steemit Bingo Game from http://bit.ly/2EW6M35, which is a Google Sheet that I set and contains all the information in all its glory (for @simplymike and the curious ones). Each step in the process corresponds to a spreadsheet with the same name so you can see the process for yourself.

Step 1 - Get the list of followers on @newbiegames account

At the time when the competition ended there were 101 followers of the account (I think it is up to 106 now) so this is where all the names come from. I copied and pasted them from the account so they are in alphabetical order.

Step 2 - Generate a list of random values to determine the order of names to draw

I went to www.random.org and used the Integer Generator to come up with a random list of numbers:

Step 3 - Combine the list of names and random values and sort from lowest (1) to highest (101) value to determine the draw order

Step 4 - The fun part! Start circling names off the bingo cards (which I prepared earlier)...

This is how it looks like at the start:

No miracles after the first four names, in fact 2 out of the first 4 names was not on anyone's list:

After 12 names were drawn, bengy was just one match away from claiming the first bingo, while davemccoy was still yet to find a match:

The interesting thing also about playing a game of bingo like this is that you can look ahead to see where the missing name for bengy was going to come up:

And since it was number 78 (out of 101 remember) there might be a long wait or perhaps another opportunity elsewhere?

Then one name that most people wanted finally came up (davemccoy if you were wondering), but it didn't help too many people except for bengy...

...who now has another chance to bingo on name 33:

After 18 names have been drawn, bengy appears to have a strong hold on the game, but from nowhere davemccoy now also has a chance to BINGO!, what a dramatic turn of events

Or not, because the name he needs is way down in 68:

And with one more move two more people are now in contention!:

But the names that they need are way down in position 80 & 81 :(

Then all of a sudden, we have a winner (go to the end of the post if you don't want spoilers)

Step 5 - Playing through to the end

Maybe it was because this is the first time I hosted a bingo game, or maybe I just really enjoy the experience, I decided to keep going and see what happens. As expected, @bengy got there on the 33rd move to be the runner up, and I guess this is the unpredictable nature of the game of bingo and why many people enjoy it. The fact that we tweaked the rules slightly made it more interesting as well.

And I did play through to the end to make sure that everybody was a winner, but in hindsight it was a bad idea because it took another 62 names for @losthippie to get that elusive bingo and for me to finally have had enough of it :p Next time I don't think I'll quite go that far...

After name 85 @losthippie was still unwilling to yield to the laws of chance... but I hadn't given up yet...

Eventually all good things have to come to an end, so now to the part that you have been waiting for - prizes!

Prizes - please claim your prize by telling me where you would like the SBD to go to - see transfer record in comments):

• Best Bingo Card prize (0.5 SBD) goes to @simplymike for a very cool design that also incorporated the avatar images so we can put some faces to the names!

• Unbingo prize (0.1 SBD) goes to @losthippie who defied the laws of chance to be the last person to score a BINGO at name 95 and I think that's pretty amazing too!

• The Winner of the first Steemit BINGO Prize (5 SBD) goes to @amariespeaks!

With the 23rd name @annamighty drawn, @amariespeaks takes a mighty step and claims the first Steemit Bingo prize (thanks to @simplymike's generous donation). Runner up was @bengy who eventually got that elusive last name that was 33rd on the list.

And that concludes the first edition of Steemit Bingo. I hope you have enjoyed it and we look forward to seeing you again soon :)