Confirmation of the land-based bingo industry’s woes has come in a report in the Financial Times that quote’s the head honcho at Riva Gaming, one Simon Hannah, as saying that he expects up to 100 land-based bingo clubs to close in the UK over the next six months.

I’m not sure if he is including the expected closures of some of Top Ten’s 38 bingo clubs following that company’s slump in profits.  Even so, 100 clubs put to rest is a frightening number for an industry that blames its troubles on the new smoking ban and gambling regulations.

Interestingly, Sir Aubrey Brocklebank, the chairman of Top Ten insists their land-based bingo clubs did all they could get through the challenges facing them, but the odds stacked against them are proving to be too much.

“Despite our considerable preparation for the smoking ban and introduction of the Gambling Act our business has still felt the impact that the combination of this unprecedented change has caused,” he is quoted as saying in a Reviewed Casinos.com report.

I beg to differ.  If land-based bingo’s concept of preparing for the smoking ban is based entirely around saying they don’t want it (as seems to have been the case), I don’t see how that constitutes ‘considerable preparation’.  I will, however, concede that the double taxation being faced by land-based bingo is unfair.

In the end, it is as we have been saying:  The major beneficiary of the problems being faced by land-based bingo is online bingo.  People still want to play bingo, but more and more of them want to play bingo games online.

Looking at the picture as a whole, where would you rather be if you wanted to go into business providing bingo games?  I think it is becoming more and more obvious that bingo online now offers the most viable future for a game that isn’t losing customers, just simply changing venues.

Written by John Witherspoon – Interested in free online bingo? Our great online bingo portal gives all the info you need.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 2:00 am and is filed under Online Bingo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.