For each mystery word, the team was given five chances to guess and were shown the first letter and one additional letter to start. If the team guessed the word on the first try, they drew one Lingo ball from the hopper in front of them. Each subsequent chance added a ball to the total draws (for instance, if it took the team three tries to guess the word, three balls would be drawn). If the team went through their allotted chances without guessing the word, they incurred a penalty of two Lingo balls and would be required to draw seven balls from the hopper.