The perception of bingo in the eyes of non-players is still very much of elderly women in smokey bingo halls, but according to many recent reports, online bingo play is a very strong market, and positioned to get even stronger.
A recent report from Bloomberg found that there were 243 online bingo sites in the UK alone – a huge increase from the 17 that had been counted in 2004. Spain saw similar growth, with the number of sites in the Spanish market increasing from 6 to 40 in one year.
The US is already a huge market, and it is expected that soon, similar growth will occur not just in the UK, but in the rest of Europe. Al Haig-Thomas, the Chief Executive of Virtue Fusion, said “We have several clients planning launches in Spain in the next three months and also new site in Denmark, Sweden, and Ireland. All are undeveloped markets that have a history and culture of bingo halls, so you would expect them to follow the UK market in terms of growth”.
Virtue Fusion are a software supplier specialising in bingo, and they have provided software for many of the biggest and most well known bingo sites.
While bricks and mortar bingo halls are struggling at the moment, especially in light of the smoking ban, they have other options for growth, including slot machines, and extra activities in addition to bingo. The bingo industry is moving towards other media, such as TV bingo, and online bingo.
TV bingo, such as the ITV show Bingo Night Live, achieves respectable viewing figures for the time slot it is in, and those numbers are expected to grow in the next few years.
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