These days, my favorite game to play is:

Frantic Fish at Gamesville

If you ever see nqdenise in the chat room or on the scoreboard, that’s me.

This is a bingo-style game where you can win $25 cash in daily drawings. Whenever you rank as one of the game’s top 5 scorers, you earn 5 entries towards that day’s daily drawing. I think you might earn more than 5 entries for being the top scorer in a game, but I wouldn’t know for sure as I’ve never placed as the top scorer yet. Games last approximately 4 minutes, and there’s a 1-minute intermission between each game.

You earn points when:

• You place any numbered fish in a bingo slot (200 points)
• You finish a bingo line (diagonals count too) (1000 points)
• You get a gold coin in the bonus slot (1000 points)

These points are how you can get yourself to the top of the leaderboard.

At Gamesville, you also earn GV Rewards points when you play their online games. You also earn GV Rewards points when:

• You finish a bingo line (10 per line)
• You get a gold coin in the bonus slot (5 per coin)
• You place in the top 5 (a 250 bonus)

So even when you don’t score anywhere close to place on the leaderboard, you can still earn Rewards points. I usually play for an hour each night, then before shutting off my laptop, visit the My GV page:

My GV

And enter in that night’s accumulated Rewards into the weekly $200 and the monthly $1,000 drawing. I usually earn around 1,000 points each night and each 100 points can be redeemed into one entry towards either cash drawing.

Here’s the strategy I use when playing:

1. Click on the “Auto Daub” button on the bottom right of the screen so that it says “Auto Daub on”. That way the game play is a tad less frantic.
2. Watch the countdown in the game card the totem-man is holding on the right side of the screen, so you know exactly when the More Fish button turns orange, so you can be one of the first to click on it. I do not know this as a fact, but it appears that when there’s a tie in the leaderboard, the first person to score ranks higher in the leaderboard.
3. Drag the numbered fishies to their appropriately-numbered spot as soon as you can, so you’ll be first in any tie.
4. When you get a ? bonus fishy, try to build diagonal bingo lines with them. The corners are good to make 3 different bingo lines, so try to cover those first. Take advantage of the fact that the middle slot is a free slot. It’s easier to build a bingo line with 4 fishies than with 5.

And, when you get bored, click on the Frantic Fish logo and a crab will dance at the bottom of the gameboard. Thanks to cafsdr for pointing this out!

Here’s an online game site where you can win prizes:

Net Winner

Sign up for an account, then log in to play a totally free online lottery game. Match all four numbers, plus the bonus ball, and win the progressive jackpot! Right now the jackpot stands at just a little over $1 million USD. You can win smaller cash prizes and points for matching a smaller set of numbers. Accumulate enough points, and you can redeem them for gift certificates to Target, Wal-Mart, and other big box retailers. The official rules say you need to be a US or Canadian resident at least 18 years of age to play, excluding Quebec residents.

The game does have ads on the right side of the page, and every so often you’ll be asked to type in a code to make sure you are paying attention. The fun-ness of the game makes up for the annoyances. It loads very quickly, so it’s a good way to pass some time if you have 20 minutes to spare. Just be careful to watch your time while you’re there. You could spend hours here, if you don’t watch yourself.