Does online bingo constitute a threat to the land-based bingo industry as a whole?  Indications are that the powers-that-be in land-based bingo are having trouble dealing with the emergence andimplications of online bingo in the UK’s bingo market.

The UK’s Bingo Association runs a magazine called Bingo Link which it provides in PDF format from its website.  The magazine does not really cover online bingo except to comment on its effects on the overall land-based bingo industry – occasionally.

In the latest edition, an article with the headline “Online sector offers a little encouragement at AGM�, is the sole coverage offered regarding online bingo’s effects.  Statistics relating to online bingo in the artical show:

“… around 31 million Britons are online each month – spending a significant amount of time using internet applications or surfing web pages. Out of those surfers, 84 per cent visit some form of entertainment site and 21 per cent visit a gambling or sweepstakes site.�

These stats were provided by Tom Aquaviva of Nielsen /Netratings, and internet research firm. They show a definite trend in people moving towards online options for their entertainment.  Mr Aquaviva is quoted in the article as saying:

“Aquaviva summed up the current mood among operators in relation to the online sector. He told the conference: ‘There’s a certain amount of angst about the online space and what it’s going to mean for your businesses and that’s a question that I deal with in every conference I go to, whether you’re in bingo, consumer electronics or grocery. The internet is something that every business has to deal with. It’s something that is a double-edged sword. It’s a big risk but it’s a big opportunity.’

The unfortunate thing is that people looking for the opportunities offered by the online version of this very popular form of entertainment will find precious little in the Bingo Association’s output.  Bingo is undergoing a change, similar to the change in telecommunications that saw the emergence of the mobile phone as a viable alternative to land-line phones.  Land-line phones are unlikely to go away, but mobile phone technology is here to stay.

Free online bingo operators and online bingo halls will take customers away from land-based bingo – this is undoubted.  But it’s time for the industry to look for the advantages in this and not try to find ways to fight it.  After all, it’s still all about bingo, whichever way you look at it.

Written by John Witherspoon – Visit the best UK online bingo site. Bingostreet.com is your ultimate source for the best bingo games online.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 1:56 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.