Two women have captured the essence of today’s bingo world with six in-depth interviews of avid bingo players and a series of incredible photographs.  The exhibition was first displayed at Preston Hall before making its way to Stockton’s Mecca Bingo Hall at Chandlers Wharf.  When it is done being displayed at the bingo club, it will go to its new home in the Stockton Museum Service for prosperity.

Leigh Thomas, a 28 year old student of oral history at Teesside University and Amanda McHale, 41 year old photographer who graduated from the Cleveland College of Art and Design, collaborated on the massive project.  Thomas is a regular bingo player herself and it is a tradition in her family, with three generations of enthusiastic bingo players.  McHale had been exposed to bingo years ago in working men’s clubs and was fascinated by the changes that have occurred to the game through the years.

Mecca Bingo was one of the sponsors of the project as well as The Sponsors Club for Arts & Business.  It is no wonder that Mecca would want to get involved in a project that would record the history of the beloved game.

Stuart Booth, the manager of the Stockton bingo club, said, “We have been catering for Teesside bingo players since the 1960s and when we were asked to get involved to archive some of the history for future generations, it was an invitation we could not ignore”.

Thomas spent weeks interviewing six women and recording their stories and their personal perspectives on what bingo means to them and the changes they’ve seen.  McHale took hundreds of photographs of the bingo club and the players.

Thomas gave her reasons for the project as, “I have been attending the bingo for many years and decided it was time to record the stories of the people who go there.  I wanted to explore the sense of community that is so important to myself, my family and the people who go there”.

McHale was fascinated by the evolution of the industry, saying, “I wanted to capture the astonishing transformation that it has undergone.  The 21st century bingo hall isn’t just a world away from the worn, weary Victorian theatres and the calls of ‘legs eleven’.  With coffee shops serving lattes, bright lights, electronic gaming and breakfast menus, bingo in 2009 is a different universe”.

It seems like every other post we do lately is news of yet another newcomer to the UK online bingo market.  This is a good thing for players, though.  Competition such as we are seeing gives impetus to bigger and better promotions, bonuses and jackpots and that is never a bad thing to happen.

First up is the new Silk Bingo, brought to us by Dragonfish, 888 Holdings and Globalcom.  Any time that a site opens as part of such a huge network, you can expect two things.  One is that the site will be able to access some huge progressive games and two is that the site is going to be very similar to others already out there.  That is the case with Silk Bingo, I’m afraid – it offers very little in terms of innovation except the one unique slots game called Steps to the Stars.

The other newcomer is Bulldog Bingo, coming from Interactive Playnet, the people who just recently introduced Churchill Bingo.  It is also aimed at the UK bingo player with very British graphics that include, of course, a bulldog as well as a bobby, a telephone box, Big Ben and a red double decker.  These graphics seem to be more aimed at Americans on holiday in the UK rather than residents as they are so very cliché.

Bulldog Bingo is part of the You Got Bingo network so there aren’t any real surprises to be found.  The caller is definitely English rather than American so that is one difference between this new site and its sister site, Churchill Bingo.  Other than that, though, it’s pretty much the same as the rest of the sites on the network.  We would have liked seeing at least one unique feature but alas, there was nothing notable that we could find.

While it’s nice to have ample choice when looking for an online bingo site, we think it would be better if some of these cookie cutter sites would offer at least some innovative features or unique games.  It just doesn’t give a lot of incentive to test out new sites or return to them if they are merely offering the same old things that we can find on a number of other sites.

Between Northampton and London, Beacon Bingo clubs recently gave two lucky bingo players more than £23,000 in jackpot money.  Both jackpots were won on IGT Bingo Terminals.  IGT is one of the leading suppliers of bingo equipment in the UK land casino and bingo market.

First, back on 23 September, a regular bingo player hit the jackpot of £9,661.89 while playing the Kitty Glitter machine at the Northampton Beacon Bingo club.  Then on 6 October, a player hit on  Larry’s Lobstermania machine in the Cricklewood, North London Beacon Bingo club.  The October win of £13,330.04 is the largest jackpot hit to date on a UK bingo terminal.

The winner of the bigger prize, also a regular player, said that she planned on “spending the money on a luxurious holiday to somewhere very hot and finishing her kitchen in style”.  Congratulations to Mrs. W for the fantastic and historical win.

As Beacon Bingo Chairman Brian Mattingley says, “all our bingo venues have thise bingo terminals, which means everyone has a great chance to win fabulous jackpots”.

We are starting to get used to online bingo players hitting these sort of larger amounts but it has been rare in the land-based bingo halls.  Perhaps the smoking ban and tax increase have not damaged the land-based bingo industry quite so bad as we had been thinking?

I was just exploring the latest online bingo site to hit the UK market and it looks great to me.  It’s called Bing On and has a very clever logo with the “o” being a graphic of a power switch.  The site has a number of unique features that make it more interesting than the average online bingo site.

They have all the popular games on tap including both 75 ball and 90 ball bingo, along with a good selection of slots, video poker and even table games.  That part is similar to many of the other sites on the market.  However, they offer a very unique social media experience not often found in the realm of online bingo.

Upon registering, you will find yourself on a social networking page very much like Facebook.  You are able to add a photo, configure your privacy settings, update your status whenever you want, visit other players’ profiles and add friends just like on a social media site.  You can even send a personal message directly to another player on the site.  To add to the social aspects, Bing On also features a full-fledged discussion forum for members.

The company behind this latest online bingo venture is Mediterranean Gaming Ltd.  With over a decade in the industry, you know you’ll be dealing with a highly professional company that enjoys an excellent reputation in the gambling world.  The software they chose for the platform is the NYX Interactive which is a very smooth platform that has a somewhat different feel to it than some of the more popular platforms.

Goodies will abound on this site, if the beginning is anything to go by.  They start with a 200% initial deposit bonus and you can cash out your winnings, most unusual for an online bingo site these days.  Further deposit bonuses are available of 50% matches.  They already offer 4 progressive jackpot games for big money possibilities and they have a loyalty scheme in place to reward regular players.

I see this newest addition to the UK online bingo market taking off in a big way.  So many sites have opened that feel like another carbon copy but Bing On has a unique feel and atmosphere to it.  The added socialization features are sure to be very popular as that is often given as the top reason for players to participate in online bingo.

Bingolore is running a wonderful promotion right now for any film enthusiasts.  Known as the London Film Festival At the Movies promotion, you have multiple chances to win a film related prize right up until 29 October.

There is four hours of continuous bingo action in Room 2 on the Bingolore site, each day from 3pm to 7pm.  During that period, they are featuring movie trivia games with free DVDs as prizes.  Then later at 9 pm in the same room, they are offering a special chat room game called Chat Game Movie Stars where you could win a pair of tickets to the cinema for a newly released film.

The big prize game with this promotion takes place tomorrow evening.  The full house winner will get ￡50 in cash along with a 6 month paid subscription to Love Film.  If you can’t make it in, simply go over and pre-buy your tickets now.

It is nice to see Bingolore offering some unique promotions.  We’ve long known of them as a very inexpensive place to play with tickets starting at only a penny plus they have some excellent progressive jackpots on some of the side games.  At least five offer progressives – Big Top Tombola, Clover Rollover, Pet Luck, Lucky Ladies and Snow Queen’s Magic.

Whether you are already a member or haven’t tried the site yet, you too can get yourself a free fiver voucher code for Tombola Bingo.  Thus far they’ve given out more than ￡150,000 but there is still plenty available as anyone has the opportunity to claim one.  There isn’t anything new about giving out free bonus money as most of the sites do this however, there is one thing that is rare in Tombola’s promo – you can cash out your winnings from the free vouchers!

These codes are being emailed to current members and are available in several popular weeklies but if you haven’t seen one, simply go to this link: http://www.freebingohunter.com/all-can-claim/tombola-bingo-fbh.jsp and you can request a code to be sent to you.

Once you’ve signed up, they have a fun daily free play game for all members called the Lucky Pick so each day gives you another chance to win cash for free.  There are plenty of exciting promotions and special games available so you won’t regret giving them a go, either.  They’re even looking for people to star in their new television advert campaign.

Gala Bingo recently completed a survey and compilation of various statistics.  They have released the statistics for what seem to be the luckiest towns and regions for the past year.  They base the final winners on the highest average win per player so obviously, the results are skewed.  If one person wins a huge jackpot, that will make the average go up.  A more accurate summary would have been which town/area has the highest number of winners but hey, we’ll take what we can get.

Apparently, the figures show these towns as the ten luckiest for the past year, luckiest at the top and going in descending order:

Harrogate
Exeter
Dudley
Cleveland
Norwich
Crewe
Inverness
Motherwell
Stevenage
Portsmouth

As to luckiest regions, they were released as follows (again in descending order):

North East
Wales
Northern Ireland
West Midlands
South West
East Midlands
North West
Scotland
South East
Greater London

Of course, Gala Bingo is going on just their membership stats and while they are a huge player, there are many other online bingo sites around.  I hope no one takes this news too terribly seriously as it truly doesn’t mean a whole lot.

A bingo player from Abergale, Wales was ecstatic and disbelieving at first when she placed a bet of a mere 25p on the Galaxy Bingo side game and ended up hitting the progressive jackpot.  As she was playing two different games at the same time, she at first didn’t even realize she had won.  Once she noticed, she was under the impression it was for a lesser amount, ￡400, which pleased her anyway.

When she realized she had actually won ￡67,000 she said she couldn’t believe her luck and was completely amazed.  She says that she is planning to use the surprise windfall to remodel her house, which she was unable to afford to do before now.

Galaxy Bingo was introduced in March of this year and has become one of the most popular scratchcard games on the Gala Bingo website.  It’s a simple game, really.  You choose what you want to wager and then mark the numbers on the card.  When you get all of the numbers in a line during the first 15 bingo balls, you win a prize.

Now the progressive jackpot is building again and you could be the next big winner.  All you need to do is get yourself over to Gala Bingo and register.  Deposit whatever amount you wish to have in your account and start playing.  There are plenty of great bingo games going on every minute of the day at Gala Bingo as well as a good variety of other side games.

The Daily Mail posted quite the story on Saturday on the internet version of the paper called Mail Online.  They did an interview with Ian Burke, chief executive of Rank Group – Mecca’s parent company.  This interview took place in the bright pink Mecca club in Beeston where customers are served cappuccinos, wine and food right at their tables during games.  The new design of the club also features bar areas where patrons can forego the traditionally quieter tables and talk without worry of angering fellow bingo players.

Burke says that they’ve “taken some market share from our competitors here, but we’re also growing the local market”.   Gala Coral boss Neil Goulden, on the other hand, scoffs at the new style bingo club that Mecca is introducing, calling it “middleclass people telling workingclass people how they should play bingo.”

The new club seems to be attracting a pretty good crowd, with weekly attendance almost as much as the three Gala clubs combined.  Things like rock and roll bingo and the after-dark-bin-glo bingo where people are encouraged to dress funky and mark each other up with fluorescent daubers, are apparently things that are going over big with the bingo fans in the area.

Burke said, “We want to be the leading, not the biggest.  Clearly this concept is quite different from anything else in the industy.  According to our focus group, customers are delighted with it.”

While the Mail referred to it as “bingo wars”, we fail to see the war going on.  Gala seems to be continuing on with the traditional concept as always and do not appear to be overly concerned with the new Rank style club.  Can there be a war when the other party doesn’t seem to be worried?

FreeBingo UK is one of the most popular choices for free-to-play bingo and this week should prove to be extra fun for the players.  On Saturday, there will be the largest ever offline event for the players at FreeBingo UK.  They will be gathering in Blackpool for the second Official FreeBingo UK Player’s Meet.

Bingo players will have the opportunity to meet the other players that they’ve previously known only be screen name while they enjoy strolling alongside the Blackpool Pleasure Beach or ride the UK’s highest rollercoaster – the Pepsi Max Big One.  Of course, I’m sure they will all enjoy the large variety of theme park rides also available.

After a day of fun outside, the players will get together for the Rock and Roll Bingo event.  One of the latest exciting versions of bingo to hit the country, rock and roll bingo involves recognising the song being played and marking it off on the special bingo ticket rather than the traditional numbers.

The first event the site organised was back in July with a big day out at Alton Towers.  The event was such a big hit that they decided to have another one and hope to involve even more of their 170,00 plus membership.  To promote the event, the site was given a Blackpool theme complete with rollercoaster graphic.

In a press release, the manager of FreeBingo UK, Wayne Howe said, “Everyone is really excited about the Blackpool trip.  It is a great opportunity for the players to have a great day out and finally meet their online bingo friends for the first time.  The first trip we did to Alton Towers was lots of fun, but this next trip promises to be so much bigger and better.  Blackpool won’t know what has hit it when FreeBingo UK comes to town!”