page_title: Lingo (American game show)
section_title: Main game
hierarchical_section_title: Lingo (American game show) / 1987 version / Main game
context_page_description: Lingo is an American television game show with multiple international adaptations. Three Lingo series have aired in the United States. The first was aired in daily syndication from September 28, 1987 until March 25, 1988, and taped at the BCTV studios in Burnaby, British Columbia. A revival/reboot of the series debuted on Game Show Network on August 5, 2002 and ended in 2007 after running for a total of six seasons. A slightly reworked version of the 2002 series debuted on GSN on June 6, 2011 and ended its run on August 1 of the same year.
  The show's format combined the structure of the game of chance known as bingo with a word guessing game; contestants took turns guessing words and tried to guess enough of them to fill in enough spaces on a five-by-five card to form a line.
context_section_description: Two teams of two contestants, one of them usually returning champions, competed. To start the game, each team received a computer generated Lingo card. The champion team's Lingo card had even numbers and blue markers, and the challenger's had odd numbers and red markers. Seven of the twenty-five spaces on each card were covered.
  Play began with the red team. A five-letter word was randomly selected by an Amiga computer and the first letter was displayed before the team provided a guess. The team then had five seconds to provide a valid guess, which had to be five letters in length and then spell the word. If the team did not come up with the right word on the first try, they were shown which letters were correctly-placed as well as those in the word but not correctly placed. If a letter was in the word and in its correct place, the square was lit in red and the letter remained displayed for each subsequent guess. If a letter was in the word but was not in its proper place, a yellow circle was placed around it. Play continued in this manner until one of the teams guessed the word.
  A team could lose control if any of the following things happened:
  Failing to guess the word correctly within five tries. The five tries are cumulative and carry over if control passed to the other team.
  Giving an invalid word, whether it be misspelled, not in the dictionary, or not five letters in length. If a word was longer than five letters but the first five letters spelled a valid word in the dictionary, the team retained control.
  Failing to come up with a guess within five seconds.
  If more than one letter in the word had not yet been revealed, one was given to the other team before they took control. If only one letter remained, the team did not get to see it but were allowed five seconds to confer.
  Once a team guessed the word, each contestant drew a ball from a hopper in front of them. Eighteen of the balls had numbers on them corresponding with the numbers of the uncovered spaces on their Lingo card. When drawn, the corresponding space was marked on the team's Lingo card. Three red balls were also in the hopper; drawing one of these ended the team's turn and cost them control.
  Each hopper also contained three "prize balls", each corresponding with a prize. Drawing one ball won the team $250 in traveler's cheques. Drawing another ball added a trip. If the team managed to draw all three prize balls in their hopper, they also won a cash jackpot which started at $1,000 and increased by $500 for each game it went unclaimed.
  As long as a team did not draw a red ball, they retained control and received first guess at the next word. The match went on until one of the teams completed a line during their turn. The first team to do this won the game, $250, and a chance at thousands more in the bonus round.
caption: An example of a Lingo puzzle.