Bingo domination

Virtue Fusion the developer and provider of online gaming and bingo software seems to be taking over the online bingo world, they state proudly on their corporate website that they are the ‘World’s Biggest online bingo provider’ which clearly is something to be proud of and from their prolific activities this year it seems likely that their success is set to continue. They are lucky enough to have scored some of the biggest names around in online bingo, Gala Bingo, Mecca Bingo, Ladbrokes Bingo to name but a few and still the list keeps growing.

There is a report currently on the EGaming Review site that states that even Betfred Bingo have jumped camps from Playtech and are now going to be powered by Virtue Fusion, stating better liquidity as the reasons behind the move. There is no official press release to support this article however Bob McCullough the CEO of Virtue Fusion recently gave a very in-depth interview with EGaming Review regarding the phenomenal growth in the online bingo market and so it is very likely this revelation did come from the horses mouth.

Online bingo player numbers explode

In the article Mr McCullough states that the online bingo market has grown substantially over recent years and in 2004 the online bingo annual winnings would be around the £50m whereas in 2008 this had risen substantially to £500m. Although from a corporate perspective joining a huge gaming provider like Virtue Fusion must be very attractive, the benefits speak for themselves such as having a top end user friendly software package, the obvious advantages of being part of a huge gaming network and of course having the relationship with an organisation that is experienced in bridging the gap into emerging markets. The online bingo player may however feel sometimes that all theses slick sites have a certain sameness about them that they have lost a little of their own identity and have lost that awareness of each individual player being just that… an individual.

What goes boom can go bust!

Virtue Fusion does provide great software and of course we are not for one minute saying that their vast experience of online bingo both here and abroad is not valuable and should not be tapped into but it does seem a shame that in fact by ‘virtue’ of their very success there could very possibly be a loser. We do hope that it does not end up being the loyal online bingo player; choice is a very valuable commodity and should not be ignored, after all if boredom sets in where will the online bingo players go next?

Crown Bingo

If you’re looking for something to keep you busy after the week’s fun, why not pop back to crownbingo on Sunday and get busy with some freebie fun? With free games from midday to midnight, you can play to your heart’s content and not even have to worry about your budget for the next week. Get over to room 2 to play for cash prizes in freebie games, and don’t forget you can still pick up either of their massive progressive jackpots in the freebie sessions; that mean you could win up to £10, 754 for nothing at all!

Monday brings further fun and frolics at Crown, with their famous Charity game kicking off between 7pm and 9pm. This month Crown is supporting the National Osteoporosis Society and they are aiming to raise the roof on their fundraising in honour of the National Osteoporosis Month.

The National Osteoporosis Society is committed to providing specialist advice and support to those suffering with Osteoporosis and those at risk of developing the condition. Offering a daily helpline service, their main objective is to provide the information that people need to improve their quality of life no matter what their situation. Having set up local support groups across the UK, the National Osteoporosis Society also works hard to increase research undertaken in this area and to fund projects which improve awareness.

As an entirely community based bingo site, Crown has raised a total of £4,368 for its chosen charities, and as a player orientated site, Crown asks its players to vote for the charity of their choice. This is an excellent reflection of how the game of bingo has always aimed to come to the aid of those who are playing, so if you have a particular charity you wish to thank or support, why not let Crown know and see how simply playing your favourite game can change lives?

Bingo Association Reshuffles

What with Rank (Mecca Bingo) winning its ruling against the government coffers in terms of interval bingo games and VAT, opening the way for many other bingo operators to do the same, and the retirement of Chairman of the Bingo Association (BA) Sir Peter Fry, it looks as though bingo in the UK is in for a big re-shuffle (hopefully).

Sir. Peter Fry announced his retirement from the Association in the 21st April this year, but the wheels of beauocracy do move slowly, so we don’t quite know what is happening with the BA as yet. What we do know is that Paul Talboys will take over the Chairmanship of the Association until such time as a suitable replacement can be found. Sir Peter Fry, has however chaired his last AGM.

Bingo operators have been looking to the Association to do something about the bingo taxation problem for some time now, and it seems they have done absolutely nothing. Any real intervention and hope has come from the private sector in terms of the lawsuit instituted by rank. This will set a precedent for other bingo operators to follow suit, but surely this is an area of concern for the UK Bingo Association?

I certainly would have believed so, had I not seen with my own eyes the mealy-mouthed responses from the BA on this real problem. For the past few years they have been engaging with government on this issue and every snippet of information we get is that something is being done, but nothing happens.

One actually wonders if the BA isn’t just another necessary evil, much like life insurance and bingo operators’ money is going into the wrong pockets if they believe the association has been representative of them. As far as I am concerned the BA reshuffle means very little if they don’t reshuffle their ideologies also.

There has been some indication that the new Chairman of the BA might be Simon Wykes, former MD of Mecca Bingo, or it might be someone with absolutely no background in bingo. The Association has to be represented by someone who knows the industry and is able to fight on its behalf. Taking Mecca’s court ruling into consideration I certainly believe Mr. Wykes could be the best man for the job.

Big online bingo winner at Foxy Bingo

If you haven’t yet played the monthly £25,000 Guaranteed Jackpot online bingo game at Foxy Bingo then maybe you should think about having a go, because that is exactly what a recent big winner did. Foxy Bingo roomie, known by the chat name of ‘PeteLilly’ had been playing at the Foxy Bingo site for about six months and decided to pre-purchase his bingo tickets for the monthly main event when Lady Luck suddenly smiled down on him. The stunned online bingo player had never pre-purchased bingo tickets before at Foxy Bingo and hadn’t actually been logged in when he won, so was completely unaware of how his fortunes had changed for the better.

Overjoyed by his unexpected good fortune PeteLilly needed to call his son to check his Foxy Bingo account when he next logged on, because he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw his new balance of over £25,000! His son quickly verified that PeteLilly was indeed £25k richer and then the lucky winner was left shaking trying to take the good news in. As you would expect from one of the friendliest online bingo sites around the other players at Foxy Bingo have all congratulated the shaken but not stirred PeteLilly, on his amazing windfall whenever he plays in his favourite online bingo room at Foxy, Perfect 10.

Decisions, decisions – how will PeteLilly spend his cash?

It remains for the very lucky PeteLilly to decide how to spend some of his winnings and the family have decided that a cruise is high on the agenda of things to do, though whether they will opt for the Caribbean or a Mediterranean cruise they are all undecided – or maybe they will have both! Foxy Bingo has some fantastic guaranteed jackpots to be won every week so if you fancy checking them out you will need to go to the Main event page at the Foxy Bingo site. There you will find full details of all the unbelievable cash prizes to be won, the Monthly Guaranteed Jackpot takes place the last Friday of the month at Foxy Bingo and ticket prices are £1 each, with the online bingo game starting at 9.00pm.

Why not treat yourself to some fabulous Foxy fun by pre-purchasing your online bingo tickets, then log off, go about your business and then check out your balance with your fingers crossed after the event to see if you have hit a Foxy Bingo Jackpot just like PeteLilly!

UK Online Bingo

UK Bingo is growing at a staggering rate – from just 17 UK bingo sites in 2004 to nearly 250 in 2008. Only the US and Japan rank ahead of the UK online bingo industry for the most bingo sites per player and with new UK bingo sites coming online all the time, surely it’s only a matter of time before UK bingo rules the world!

We like to think we’ve played our part in helping to find and encourage the best places to play UK bingo and in helping to promote this wonderful game in across our nation by showing bingo lovers where they can play free UK bingo, get free sign-up bonuses and, of course, keeping them informed as to the biggest prizes and cash jackpots across the world of UK bingo.

Whether you’re looking for free UK bingo or you only want to play UK bingo for huge jackpots, Bingo Depot are here to help. This page features our selection of the best UK bingo sites – from Vic Reeves cheeky humour at 888 Ladies to the giants of UK online bingo, Mecca and Gala. Remember, wherever you play we want to hear from you.

UK Online Bingo Sites Have Maximum Visibility

Internationally reputed search engine optimization (SEO) solutions provider, GreenLight, recently conducted a study to identify the online bingo and other casino sites which enjoy maximum visibility and are consistently requested for in search queries by Google users. The survey included almost the entire online bingo gaming fraternity and drew its findings from almost 1.6 million searches for ‘gambling’ in March 2009 alone and also categorized 287 of the most sought after search words.

The firm took into account the relative search rankings thrown up by Google to come to the conclusion as to which online gaming sites figured on the first page itself for any particular search term keyed in. 60 of the world’s most renowned online bingo parlors were surveyed and 12 among these had at least a 10% visibility. Overall, it was noticed that British-targeted sites were on top of the list of the online bingo parlors with maximum visibility. The leading UK facing sites which enjoyed top visibility were Meccabingo with 61%, FoxyBingo with 56%, DreamBingo with 55%, popular online casino site 888 with 52% and LittleWoods with 49%.

It is considered critical to appear on the very first page of search results for any online business because research has revealed that an overwhelming majority of search engine users do not look beyond the first page. Very few users actually move beyond that first crucial page and hence, most online enterprises try to employ various SEO techniques to ensure that they are not overlooked by any search engine. Online bingo sites seem to have jumped on to the SEO bandwagon soon enough with more than 20% of the surveyed bingo sites enjoying at least 10% visibility.

However, while figuring in the first page of most search results might garner more traffic to an online bingo site, they have to also offer value in terms of better bonuses, jackpots and promotional offers to gamers in order to retain their popularity. This is where bingo parlors like Mecca Bingo and Foxy Bingo have succeeded. They enjoy the coveted ‘page 1’ position on Google searches and also back it up with stand up performance for an enhanced customer experience.

Gamers love the sheer simplicity and convenience that these UK online bingo halls offer; often coupled with a mind boggling variety of games and the sizeable jackpots involved. It is also often seen as a tool to simple enhance a gamer’s existing bingo skills so that he can perform better in brick-and-mortar bingo halls. Online bingo is booming and their burgeoning popularity has even helped them deal with the ongoing economic recession without much of a difficulty.

Bingo Services from PartyGaming

PartyGaming recently announced its plans to launch an online casino and bingo services portal, under the brand name “Five”, collaborating with reputed UK television company, Channel Five. While PartyGaming will take care of the operational aspects of the site, Channel Five will be responsible for the promotion. The site is aimed at attracting UK audiences and is expected to be operational by the latter part of the year.

After the implementation of stringent gambling legislations in the US and the government seizing almost its entire asset base, PartyGaming, was nearly down and out. However, the company successfully put together an innovative spread of online casinos and other gaming portals to re-emerge as the pioneer in online gaming companies. This agreement with Channel Five, allows the company to expand its market and enhance business profits.

“With more than 30 million viewers each week and a household entertainment brand, Five is an important addition to our business-to-business portfolio. We are confident of securing more B2B deals in the coming months as we match our eGaming talents and assets with the consumer reach of other companies around the world,” said Jim Ryan, PartyGaming’s chief executive officer.

PartyGaming had earlier signed on with ITV to provide premium digitized services for ITV’s online products, notably the Bingo Night Live Series. This deal with Five, is the fourth B2B deal Party has concluded this year, the others being with Intralot, DM and Cirsa.

Five is taking advantage of the digital technology entertainment trend and the new website is an example of that. The company is currently hosting its channels on several digital platforms such as Sky, Freeview and Virgin Media. Five has a number of channels under its umbrella including two television channels that were created in the year 2006, namely Five USA and Fiver. The company is also believed to have plans for yet another channel for its cable and satellite markets.

In addition to these channels, the Five company also boasts Demand Five, a medium that permits customers to download data and videos like popular television serials onto their home computers. Five also has FiveFwd, a channel which is capable of streaming content from UK television shows such as the Gadget Show and Fifth Gear. Both these channels are part of Five’s digital technology programs.

“Five is looking aggressively at how to expand its presence in digital media, both in terms of its core broadcast content as well as allied offerings that reflect the channel’s unique sense of dynamism and fun,” said Dawn Airey, Chairman and chief executive officer of Five.

Virgin Bingo moves

From the 20th of May 2009 Virgin Bingo are changing names to Virgin Games. They are changing their online bingo games offering as well and introducing 80 ball bingo, Speed bingo and a new Joker Jackpot Bingo game. With online bingo promotions such as penny bingo a guaranteed daily jackpot of £6,000 Virgin Games is re launching their bingo with a splash.

New side games will also be introduced at this time and soon customers will be able to play Dungeons & Dragons, Da Vinci Diamonds and Battleships.

Existing Virgin customers will also see some changes to their account; their account will now change to Virgin Games which means that they are now permitted to play Virgin Casino and Virgin Poker with their account.

It appeats that Virgin Bingo are conducting a similar switch to the Virtue Fusion bingo platform (as did Paddy Power Bingo recently), moving away from Parlay Entertainment who have been providing them with their bingo games up until now. Moving over to the Virtue Fusion will allow Virgin Bingo to take advantage of the fact that Virtue Fusion operate a huge network offering some of the largest bingo prizes to be found, due to its vast network of key operators and peak traffic of over 6,000 concurrent players. Existing customers include Ladbrokes Bingo, and William Hill Bingo, Mecca Bingo, and Minxy Bingo to name just a few.

Gala Bingo Launch

As some of you know, Gala Bingo are fairly unique in that they are one of the few bingo operators that develop and host their own bingo software. This means that when you play at Gala Bingo, you are playing a game of bingo that won’t be found or repeated on other bingo sites.

Recent news of Gala Bingo’s new Bingo Software reached us the other day, and we’ve spent a bit of time playing around with it.

As a precautionary measure, Gala are still operating their old bingo games, but will slowly be swapping over to the new version, just as they did nearly 2 years ago with the old version bingo.

If you would like to see this new version, then log in to Castle Club for a cheeky peek.

Windicate
Invite up to 5 of your Gala Bingo friends to become your ‘Win Buddies’. Every time you win a full house playing one of their ‘Windicate Bingo Games’, all your buddies get 50p. (ok, this isn’t the most generous amount we’ve ever seen but it’s better than nothing).

New Avatars
Get creative and make yourself a custom avatar which represnts you to the other players in the room.

My Messages
Be the first to hear about Gala Bingo’s latest promotions or games with their new messages and alerts. Each time you receive a new message, a small pop-up will appear in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen to let you know.

Greater Customisation
New options for changing the look and feel of the bingo, including images, position of tabs, etc.

Better Performance
Gala Bingo’s new version of bingo has been written to take advantage of new features in the ‘Flash Player’ (the application you need in order to play theirs, or any other operators bingo game).

We were a little disappointed though at the graphics of this new interface, we thought they didn’t quite meet the usual high standard of Gala. However, we did like the full customisation ability and did notice a slight speed increase when navigating around the interface.

One thing for sure is that this has been built for Gala Bingo’s future in online bingo in mind. Notice how they have included a pound sign and a British flag in the game information area? Could this indicate their planned move into other territories?

They also seem to have rid themselves of the dabber, and the dabber character that was their mascot for so long.

Please let us know how you have got on with Gala Bingo’s new version, and what your thoughts on it are.

Winkbingo.com

A delightful commercial showing just how much joy online bingo can get you, this hysterical commercial showcases the best feelings associated with online bingo – the celebration of a win!

This happy housewife in her pink jammies dancing in complete abandon because she won while playing at Winkbingo.com is truly what Winkbingo.com hopes all its winners to be like – completely happy to be playing at Winkbingo.com. Whether it’s a bit of cash or a life altering Jackpot, online bingo is about having a good time and winning prizes, large and small. The UK online bingo circuit has been watching the meteoric rise of Winkbingo.com to the top of the charts. Not only does it provide a fantastic online experience to its members, the prizes and jackpots at Winkbingo.com are among the best offered by any UK online bingo website.

The strong thrust towards advertising itself on the telly has paid rich dividends for Winkbingo.com. Over the year that Winkbingo.com has been in business, it has run several funny and quirky TV commercials and this latest one just goes right to the heart of it. Playing online bingo is a great experience and Winkbingo.com makes it just fantastic. The sheer ecstasy of this Winkbingo.com winner just comes out at you as you watch her do her completely frenzied dance of pure delight. Happiness unadulterated, that’s what it is.

A series of well thought out, really funny TV ads has kept Winkbingo.com in the spotlight all these months. It is easily one of the most recognized and known online bingo brands in the UK today. The TV ad campaigns have undoubtedly contributed to this heightened awareness of brand Winkbingo.com. The earlier TV ads can all be viewed at the Winkbingo.com website. Check out all 14 of them. Hilarious situations woven around Jane Austen characters, a camping couple, ghoulish Frankenstein experiments, and even a kung fu flavoured bingo game have all resulted in memorable and fun ads. The underlying message has always been that Winkbingo.com is a great online bingo destination and everyone can win playing online bingo at Winkbingo.com.

Winkbingo.com also made use of TV as a medium to advertise its bumper Christmas promotion, the Win a Wink Mini promo. Last Christmas Winkbingo.com ran a huge online bingo promo where the grand prize was a shiny new Mini Cooper. Winkbingo.com had a TV commercial especially for this promo. The commercial was seen throughout the holiday season before the big game on New Year’s Day.
This online bingo website also sponsored the hit show All Stars Family Fortunes. Viewers got to see the super cute Wink Kittens playing online bingo in the Winkbingo.com commercials in the programme breaks. Winkbingo.com members can still look at exclusive clips of some behind the scenes shots of these kittens playing around during the shoot on the Winkbingo.com website.

Winkbingo.com has gone all out with its TV ad campaigns and the results are there for all to see. One of the highest rated UK online bingo websites, Winkbingo.com is here to stay. The latest commercial is sure to make quite an impact on viewers this month. The pleasure of playing and winning at online bingo with Winkbingo.com is there for all to see.

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