Bingo News: December 2007 Archives
The UK's bingo industry could be in real trouble due to bingo player numbers in just 12 months, killed off by the bingo hall smoking ban. A total of 20,000 UK bingo jobs are at risk unless the Government takes action, Bingo industry chiefs warned.
They revealed a third of the UK 548 bingo halls are under threat of closure.
Bingo giant Mecca Bingo has frozen all Bingo hall expansion plans and cancelled dividend payments to shareholders, with its share price halved compared to the same time last year.
Bingo halls have lost 600,000 players since the smoking ban on bingo halls in England and Wales. Smokers who remain are playing less because they spend time outside to smoke.
Before the ban, three million people were playing offline bingo in an average week. Now experts fear the industry could be wiped out in 2008. Steve Baldwin of the UK Bingo Association said: "It's frightening to think that a pastime bingo that has given pleasure to millions could disappear within a year."
The popular MeccaBingo.com and land-based bingo operator has authorised Qire to begin a dialogue with Mecca's customers in order to gain an insight to it their Bingo customer needs.
Duke Street Capital has made an offer to buy MeccaBingo, the beleaguered offline and online bingo operator.
Paddy Power Bingo uses a plug-in bingo solution from Parlay Entertainment.
When 888 announced an agreement with Rank's online betting shop Blue Square to use its bookmaking capabilities to enable 888poker and 888roulette players to get a punt on the football or the horses without leaving for another website. There was talk of a merger and why not Mecca Bingo has been smacked hard by the smoking ban and a tie up with such an excellent online business could turn Mecca Bingo Online into something very serious. s yet their is no wider tie-up between the two companies, whose share prices have been depressed by 888's withdrawal from the US and Rank's loss of business at its Mecca bingo halls but with Genting and others piling into Mecca shares maybe we should watch this space.
The sale of Butlins, Odeon Cinemas, Pinewood filme-long disposal programme, Rank has little room for manoeuvre studios and Hard Rock cafe may have looked sensible at the time. Boss Ian Burke is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Reveal is the only 4-in-1 weekly mag which gives you celeb exclusives each week, gripping real life stories, lifestyle news and tips and your essential 7 day TV guide. They now also offer an excellent bingo service which is a reskin of the ever popular Jackpotjoy site/ If mixing David Beckham gossip and bingo is your thing this could be a good site to check out.
In 2006 MSN announced that MSN UK launched MSN Bingo on the Bingos.co.uk platform. MSN Bingo Players could access MSNBingo by going to uk.msn.com and clicking on Games. "We are extremely proud to welcome MSN UK to our family of partners," said Dominic Mansour, CEO of the Euro Gaming Limited Group of companies, which operates Bingos.co.uk.
With 2007 drawing to a close, Gala Bingo has announced the prize money given out so far as part of its High Five bingo promotion.
UK bingo players taking part in the bingo competition have scooped £2.5 million in total bingo prizes in the past three months, Gala Bingo claims.
Paddy Power Bingo are dumbfounded by the decision to ban their Man Breast Advert.
"We are completely astonished by the reaction of the London Underground to our advert," said a spokesman for Paddy Power Bingo.
Jackpotjoy.com has shelled out a record Deal No Deal jackpot of £965,728 to one lucky bingo player.
The site's luckiest ever winner is 27 year old Emira B from Dewsbury in West Yorkshire. She has been enjoying the Jackpotjoy bingo site for the past three years and has yet to take it all in. She definately Dealt correctly on the Deal or No deal game yesterday in fact she earned nearly four times what you could earn as a maximum on the Deal or No deal Noel Edmunds show from Endomol.
Proud mum Mandy celebrates her bingo jackpot win, for a super market shelf stacker Christmas came early.
Mandy Bunker won £10,635 on DailyStarBingo and according to the paper she has already spent her small fortune.
GalaBingo, the UK bingo gaming company behind ever-popularonline bingo hall Gala Bingo, has signed a deal with WagerWorks in which the later will provide Gala Bingo with Monopoly, Wheel of Fortune, Elvis, The 50 000 Pyramid, The Price Is Right Bingo, Jeopardy and Cluedo, together with the recently released Mega Jackpots.
Gala Bingo full-year pre-tax profits are up over 10 per cent, but the Bingo group warned the smoking ban and the removal of lucrative gaming machines from their bingo clubs had impacted on growth.
The privately-held bingo group said it was very cautious about the wider bingo market conditions going into 2008 and would press the UK government for the abolition of VAT on bingo products. Gala Bingo claims there are some 100 bingo clubs whose survival was at stake across the UK but they do not envisage any Gala Bingo clubs closing.
Full House Bingo is a new game from Jack Pot Joy a 90 ball bingo room for the UK Bingo fans out there. As Jackpotjoy also offer Deal or no Deal slots, the Price is Right Bingo, Strike It Lucky, Bingo Gold and 90 ball Full House Bingo they finally have a failry complete bingo line up for their players.
Gala Bingo's new High 5 Game has had its first big winner in Fenton. Margaret Ann Venables, a mother of four, scooped a whopping £874,208 and shared it will all the members of her local club making her a heroine and her local club, the luckiest in the country!
A mum of five from Harrogate copied a friend's credit card details to flitter away over £1,100 in just three days at an online bingo hall.
During the case it transpired the mother of five had maintained a website for her friend's partner and had only received, as a payment, a tumble dryer worth less than £150. She then devised the plan to take her own form of "payment".
Her friend had provided the credit card details so the mum of five could book a hotel room for herself and her partner. At this point she noted the details and went on to use them to fund her online gambling.
Three days later the transactiosn were noted and the police became involved. The mum of five has been ordered to pay back £500 of the money illegally obtained.
A 46-year-old woman from Falkirk has won £17,500 playing bingo. And she is sticking to an agreement she made, by sharing the money with the friend with whom she plays at the Gala Club in Kerse Lane.
The lucky winner says she was very shocked when she realised how much she had won.
Bingo beats is Dj Zinc's pioneering record label created specifically to deliver premier league music from selected artists across the globe and of course Dj Zinc's main music outlet.
The Sutton Riva Bingo Club first opened its doors in May - and has rounded off its opening year by scooping the UK bingo jackpot, National Bingo reveals. A 30-year-old member of the club became the first big winner since it opened recently, with a £45,000 national jackpot win.
Amy Ramsdale, a 20-year-old student nurse from Wigan, convinced her mum to go to the local Gala Bingo club with her, reports National Bingo. But her mum had to buy the tickets, as Amy admits she had no money to pay for entry herself "I begged my mum to go to bingo that night but she had to pay for me because I didn't have any money," she tells the game's operating body.
Casino group Genting took a 10 per cent stake in the troubled bingo hall operator Mecca Bingo.
Media-savvy Emmy Matthews and Ed Stevens wanted a formidable £200,000 for a 10% stake in Gaming Alerts, a service that offers users up-to-date offers, alerts and information on poker, bingo, casino and betting matters.
The Mecca Bingo club in Bolton joined forces with a Bolton Hospice and raised over £600 for the hospice.
For every new member that signed up throughout the day the Mecca Bingo Club donated £2, thats a whooping 320 new members in one day raising a total of £640 for the hospice.
The Bolton Hospice had come out tops in a recent survey by the Bingo Club as the most popular local cause.
Fundraising Director at the hospice, Debra Graham said " Things aren't like they used to be at Bingo when I went with my nan, all the facilities are completely up to date, I was really impressed."
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