Posted November 27, 2009 and tagged as Gala Bingo.
It has been a rocky bingo road for Gala Bingo throughout 2009, but they will be ending this year off on an online bingo high for their players. Money might be tight on the business front, but this will not stop Gala Bingo guaranteeing to give away £150,000 in the run up to Christmas.
This year has not been great for the bingo industry as a whole. In the 2009 budget bingo was hit hard with news of the bingo tax hike from 15% to 22%. So the UK Government gave in one hand by abolishing the absurd double (VAT / Tax) law and took back in the other by rising bingo tax by 7%.
Many smaller land based bingo clubs fell under the radar of the double taxation law, so the rise in bingo tax duty really did hit them where it hurts. The bingo industry did not take news of the shift in tax on them lightly with many bingo operators joining forces to fight this new regime.
Bingo players also descended on Parliament earlier in the year to show their support for the bingo industry in their plight and a petition was even set up on the 10 Downing Street website.
Due to many factors land based bingo clubs throughout the UK have been on the decline for the past three years. This has left many towns and cities with either much reduced bingo playing facilities or none at all. The definition of (out local bingo clubs) also seems to be becoming a thing of the past with many bingo players now having to travel miles to their nearest bingo hall, instead of just around the corner.
The game of online bingo has taken bingo players by storm and with broadband now being available in most UK homes, bingo online is even more accessible than ever. It has to be said that online bingo has played a part in the decline of UK bingo clubs as there has been a noticeable shift in how people now play bingo.
We can only hope that 2010 proves to be a more stable year for our much loved UK bingo halls because none of us want to see any more of them close down as they remain a vital part of many communities.
PLAY GALA BINGO HERE
Posted November 24, 2009 and tagged as 888 Ladies Bingo.
888 Ladies Bingo asked their bingo players to cast their votes on who they think will win the X Factor contest this year and the results are now in. Topping the survey poll with 38% of the vote was single mum Stacey Solomon and coming in a close second was Olly Murs with 28% of all votes cast. 888 Ladies Bingo have a massive online community, so there really could be some truth in recent X Factor survey that they run.
However as we know Olly was in the sing off on Sunday night against JedWard, so either the voting public thought he would be safe and failed to vote for him or they placed other contestants above him. Jedward (John and Edward) pulled in just 1% of the vote by 888 Ladies Bingo players and as we now they were voted off on Sunday night, so this predication did stack up to what their survey said.
At one point Danyl Johnson was the bookies favourite to win the X Factor, but he got just 7% of the vote. Joe McElderry came in third with 20% and Lloyd Daniels pulled in 6%. These X Factor survey results do not have any bearing on the actual votes cast by the public on the show, as they are kept top secret by the X factor bosses, but they do give an indication as to how public feeling is currently running.
A spokesperson for 888 Ladies Bingo said, “Stacey’s girl next door attitude has captured the hearts of the nation. She’s the best thing to happen to Essex since Faces night club announced a happy hour extension. Whether it’s bobbies or builders, everyone is talking about the darling from Dagenham. We obviously don’t know the results of the phone votes and, although our poll has Stacey leading the way at the moment, fans are more fickle than Simon Cowell so there’s a long way to go yet!”
It is true that you just never know what why the votes will go each week and there has been quite a few voting surprises during this latest x Factor show. We won’t have to wait too long now however to find out just who will be crowned the X Factor 2009 winner, as this fantastic show will come to an end on 13th December……………..just in time for the X Factor winner to release their single for Christmas, with Simon Cowell hoping once again that it will hit the Xmas no one spot.
The X Factor show has always been timed perfectly to fit in with Christmas and the charts!
PLAY 888 LADIES BINGO HERE
Posted November 20, 2009 and tagged as Bingo.
They say you are as young at you feel and hearing about bingo vandalism story involving OAP’s at a housing association in Edinburgh, certainly put a spring in our steps to find out more. Things seem like they have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous as a power struggle between elderly residents at the Calder Garden Facility in Sighthill, has ignited, which has led to police launching an investigation into malicious vandalism.
This bingo power struggle all reportedly began after pool balls went missing and a bingo night had to be cancelled at this residential home. According to the ‘News Scotsman’ there has been a long running dispute between different cliques at Calder Garden home.
The latest development in this struggle happened last week when the pool table at the residential care home was vandalised. It is thought this was an inside job. The pool table was donated by a local taxi firm to 75 year old Elizabeth Mitchell.
Her daughter also named (Elizabeth) spoke to the News Scotsman about what has been going on, she said, “It was something that a lot of the relatives liked to play when they came round on Fridays, particularly the youngsters, and it was well used by residents too. We called in the police, although it looks like it was someone at the complex that did it. It’s just so unfair. A few people are causing problems for everyone else, but this kind of behaviour is totally unacceptable.”
Apparently all this unrest at the home has escalated from March this year after an election for a new residents committee took place. It has been claimed that the new committee are a law unto themselves and the election was rigged, so the committee members could do what the like with the hall at the centre of this dispute.
It seems a shame to hear of such ill feeling between the OAP’s, but just like a spokesman for the council in Edinburgh said, “As with any group of people living together, differences can arise and we are working with the residents to resolve them.”
This has got to be one of the wackiest (although not funny) bingo stories we have ever come across!
Posted November 18, 2009.
The National Bingo Game Association runs the National Bingo Game which is played in bingo clubs throughout the UK. Bingo halls first became established in Britain during the 1960’s, but it was not until the revolution of the National Bingo game in the 1980’s did bingo players get the chance to win truly life changing amounts of money.
Many different bingo companies now link up twice daily every single day of the week to bring their players the National Bingo Game to participate in. These bingo clubs currently include Mecca Bingo, Top Ten Bingo, Apollo Bingo, Beacon Bingo, Brechland Bingo, Buckingham Bingo, Capitol Bingo, Carlton Bingo, Castle Bingo, Club 3000 Bingo, Fruit Bingo, Flutters Bingo, Leo Leisure Bingo, Opera Bingo and Palace Bingo.
All of these land based bingo clubs also now run online bingo sites on the net, so bingo players are able to play bingo with their favourite bingo provider without even leaving the comfort of their own home. Having said that however, whist online bingo sites run their own offers and bingo promotions, the National Bingo Game itself can only be found and played at land based bingo clubs.
It was with thanks to the gaming act change back in 1968 that allowed betting and gaming to be played in member only establishments, that see bingo populated in the UK. This is also why you do need to become a member of a land based bingo club before being allowed to enter their premises and play bingo with them.
Bingo members are also allowed to sign in their friends now, which gives them a temporary membership for the afternoon or night, depending on what bingo session they are participating in. The National Bingo game is a completely separate game to all other bingo games played within bingo clubs. Bingo players can choose to opt into or out of this game when purchasing their books.
The National Bingo game is a set jackpot prize and it is won or shared by the player or players who call house on this game in the least amount of bingo calls. This means that the National Bingo game jackpot is guaranteed to be won on every single game that is played, unlike the high five jackpot now provided by Gala Bingo, which is now set at £250,000, where players need to win bingo on the number (5) to win the full jackpot or a number ending in a five to win a percentage of the jackpot prize.
Posted November 16, 2009 and tagged as Virgin Bingo.
Virgin Bingo will be landing back on our small screens today for another 2 week online bingo advertising campaign as from today. Their online bingo TV ads are due to be aired across all terrestrial and freeview channels, so viewers can expect to be greeted by Ricardo the Jalapeno once more, delivering the Virgin Bingo message.
The all new Virgin Bingo advert proved to be such a success for them, they decided to extend their bingo campaign for another two weeks. As we know it most certainly is not pocket change when delving into the TV ad world, in fact many gaming sites have be known to have million pound ad budgets before now, so the Virgin Bingo ad must be doing its job for them to bring it back again within a relativity short period of time.
The power of TV advertising is a force to be reckoned with, however get it wrong and a whole lot of money could be washed down the drain. There is one thing all gaming sites have to bear in mind when making online bingo TV adverts or any gaming TV ad come to that, which is they must adhere to the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) code of practice.
Tombola Bingo to their cost had to remove all their fairground attraction ride themed online bingo TV adverts after one complaint was made to the ASA, which was then subsequently upheld. The ASA sited that these ads would appeal to young persons, due to the fairground theme. This led to the banning of all three Tombola Bingo averts and as a result Tombola Bingo also choose to change the image on their site from a fairground ride to a bingo paradise.
Tombola Bingo are not on their own as many sites have had their TV adverts banned over the past few years. Ladbrokes even took out a full size newspaper advert looking for the person who made the one complaint about their ad and subsequently see it banned.
What was interesting to see about the Virgin Bingo TV ads, was that they went for an animated theme. In general you associate animated cartoon characters with children’s TV shows, although in our opinion the Virgin Bingo ad does not appeal to children in any shape or form, still they did take a risk going down the animated route with Ricardo the cartoon character Jalapeno as the face of their site.
PLAY VIRGIN BINGO HERE
