Doomsday writers have recently been reporting the demise of UK bingo if the current growth of Free Bingo games for cash continues unchecked. Many suggest free bingo for real money is an unsustainable product and will result in a collapse of many online bingo halls as they struggle to support a free bingo offering in the competitive market. However, the growth of free bingo shows no sign of slowing down and bingo brands continue to increase the volume and scale of the free bingo they offer. Could it be that bingo brands like Ladbrokes bingo or the Sun Bingo think free bingo will actually be good for them in the long term?
Bingo is a game which relies upon high numbers of players for its success. Just like anything the cheaper bingo is the more volume and more players it attracts. One thing which free bingo has achieved is that it has massively increased the overall numbers of people playing free bingo. This means that bingo now has many, many more participants than it ever had before sites all started giving it away for nothing. With more people having been introduced to the world of bingo through the free offers then it is much more likely that these players will contribute to an overall rise in the fortunes of the industry. Therefore it is not so much that bingo is being played for free which presents a risk for the future, but rather the disparate nature of the market.
The really big question for the industry is whether the market can sustain the number of bingo sites which are operating in the UK. There are well over 300 online bingo sites in the UK and many of them contribute nothing to the market in terms of product development and player experience. That’s not to suggest that smaller operators, like paddy power bingo, do not have a place in the market. However, many of the smaller brands in the UK market find themselves simply assisting in the wide spread movement of players back and forth between different bingo brands. The most successful small sites are those like Paddy Power Bingo and Bucky bingo which have a strong community at the heart of their operation. In these sorts of sites it is not free bingo or the size of the bingo promotions which allows them to do well. It is that they have a community of players who are focussed on playing at that site and enjoying the company of other players. For the Big Bingo brands they difficulty they will have in the future will not come from the competitiveness of free bingo; but from their inability to replicate the social knit that small and medium sites can achieve.
By Sam Cook
Sam Cook is a freelance author writes articles on various game related topics. For more information on Gala bingo and Ladbrokes bingo he suggests you to visit http://www.freebingohunter.com