Gambling News

As online bingo becomes the trendiest thing since, well, online poker, there’s a bit of a battle going on for your business. You’ve seen the TV adverts: Sharon Osbourne fronts Gala’s campaign with that, “know what I mean girls?” wink, while 888 opted instead for a cross-dressing Vic Reeves. Neither of these high profile faces come cheap, an indicator of just how big the bingo business is becoming. Meanwhile, Foxy Bingo stays true to its name with a rather creepy six-foot fox leading a gaggle of bingo-crazed women around like the Pied Piper of Gamblin’. There’s definitely a female slant to the majority of these campaigns. Although poker continues to gather street cred apace and generate huge online revenues, it is still perceived largely, though not exclusively, as a bloke market. Could it be that the gambling companies have finally found the key to getting women to bet online?

At around 10p per bingo card, it’s easy to see why punters are hitting the virtual bingo halls in their droves, particularly given the bonuses and introductory deals all the main players are offering you to sign up. Free money, it seems, is everywhere, in the form of introductory free-plays and other too-good-to-be-true offers. So what’s the catch? Well, aside from the usual data capture - pretty much all the sites require you to give your email address, credit card details, postal address, and the name of the last person you played tennis with - the small print is, as ever, worth reading. Often you have to match any ‘free money’ yourself and, in most cases, should you make your fortune playing with your freebies, you won’t be able to take out your loot until you’ve spent a minimum amount from your own pocket on bingo cards. Sneaky, sneaky.

The industry standard offers are free game cards to new customers, with free-play offers usually in the region of £5 - £15. In most cases you won’t be able to cash out any winnings from this until you’ve chipped in thirty quid or so of your own hard-earned. Deposit bonuses are also rife, with bingo sites matching, and in some cases more than matching, the first cash deposit you make into your account. Some sites will even continue to add credit to your deposits after your first time, though naturally at a vastly reduced rate. Needless to say, all of this donated credit must be spent on bingo cards and can’t be cashed out. Usually you won’t even be able to take any of your winnings out until you’ve met minimum deposit levels. But as long as you’ve got a calculator close at hand to work out what the hell’s going on, most of the offers are pretty good. With only slight variations between sites in offers and corresponding conditions, the jackpot levels may be your deciding factor and there’s much more variation here. At the time of writing, jackpots at Gala were in excess of thirty grand while other ‘rooms’ on other sites might have relative pennies up for grabs. This is, of course, subject to constant change, so keep your eyes peeled.

Here’s a quick guide to some of the current offers. All details were correct at the time of writing, and there are of course more bingo sites that we couldn’t be bothered/ didn’t have time to check.

888 Ladies (www.888ladies.com)
-    Free £10 introductory offer
-    150% first deposit bonus
-    50% bonus on cash deposits thereafter

Foxy Bingo (www.foxybingo.com)
-    £10 welcome bonus, no deposit required
-    100% (like for like) first deposit bonus, up to £150 (forfeited unless you bet at least twice the sum total of your initial deposit and the subsequent match funding combined before cashing out the deposit).
-    50% deposit bonus on every deposit up to £100

Wink Bingo (www.winkbingo.com)
-    £15 sign-up bonus
-    200% first deposit bonus up to £100
-    50% bonus on subsequent deposits from £10 - £100

Gala (www.GalaBingo.co.uk)
-    Free £10 introductory offer; £5 initial deposit required
-    200% first deposit bonus
-    Too many promotions to list individually, changing monthly.

Ladbrokes (www.bingo.ladbrokes.com)
-    £20 welcome bonus (requires £10 deposit)

Crown Bingo (www.crownbingo.com)
-    200% welcome bonus up to £250
-    £1 sign-up bonus, no deposit required

Sun Bingo (www.sunbingo.co.uk)
- £25 welcome bonus

Dream Bingo (www.dreambingo.co.uk)
-    £5 sign-up bonus
-    100% first deposit match
-    25% match on further deposits