Bingo Business Under Threat
23rd October, 2007
Bingo Firms have been suffering due to many changes in the law directly affecting their business: smoking ban, heavy taxes and fresh restrictions on gaming machines that were introduced this September, following the 2005 Gambling Act that looks like it’s really going to hit the bingo profits this time.
Bingo has been considered in the top three UK’s most popular leisure activity with almost 4 million regular players, but this statistics could change very rapidly as the effects of these numerous laws are becoming more and more evident. The things have become so bad that even the Bingo Association have called this the biggest threat since 1994, when the National Lottery was launched and took away an enormous number of players from the bingo world…
Paul Talboys, the association's chief executive had this to comment: "I've been in this industry for 30 years and the last big significant event was the introduction of the National Lottery. There is generally an immediate decline and a gradual recovery as firms learn to deal with it. But some clubs - especially the independent clubs in rural areas - are like community centres, providing social glue. These will tend to be under most threat."
So far so bad, as the damages to the bingo chains are clear as sky now. Rank, aka the Grosvenor Casino chain, reported the drop in UK revenues by 19% since September 1. Now, the new gaming machine restriction is in, Rank is facing even tougher times, as more than £70 million was contributed from gaming machines to the firm’s revenue last year.
It seems that less and less people will be playing bingo and soon, who knows maybe we will forget how to play bingo all together…. The laws could backfire the UK economy too due to this law restrictions.
