Bingo Rooms

Playing Bingo Home > Bingo Articles & Interviews >

2nd Annual Online Bingo Summit - Online Bingo And Mobile Bingo Technology Developments

Parlay TalkDuring the summit, there were a number of chances to engage with technology related news and discussion. As well as displays in the exhibition hall, a couple of the panels focused on the the technology that drives the games, and future developments.

Now, as someone who's completely detached from the whole mobile phone thing (I don't own one...) I was especially interested in learning more about mobile phone side of the game. To be fair, it's not an area I know anything about at all, but given the relevance of news about such things mobile gaming, mobile internet and convergence, I was especially interested to learn more about what was happening on that platform. In recent weeks I've been playing with the idea of making a .mobi site, so if nothing else, I was expecting this to be an eye opener for me.

Mobile Bingo - Not Quite There Yet...

I have to say, the news was a tad disappointing on the mobile front. The last couple of months I posted on our forum about some non-cash, single player Bingo games that were available for mobiles. I was expecting something similar to be in the pipeline for an actual mobile Bingo game - but as I found out, there's nothing immediate on the horizon.

During the panels, it became clear there were a number of barriers to creating a paying game of Bingo on a mobile phone. Firstly the range of platforms creates difficulty as the nature of Bingo and the need for a constant connection would cause problems. Real time it would also be tricky to make chat and the game play work, and the physical requirements for actually typing in chat messages would be a fiddle.

It soon becomes clear, that given the current range of handsets, OS, screen sizes and data transfer methods, anything approaching an offering that even mildly resembles the current online style of game or game play is a long way off. One option could be just to integrate the mobile solution in to an existing online service, so, rather than actually play on your mobile, you're able to buy tickets from your online profile, and get the results back after the games are played.

Another hindrance is posed by the skill levels of many in the online Bingo demographics when it comes to downloading and installing apps and software on their mobiles. Any Bingo game would need to work and be installable with little effort to the player to give it a chance to succeed. It would certainly need to be powered by Java, but even within that operating environment, all the previous issues still apply - as in range of handset, capabilities, screen sizes, etc.

It's telling that so far, no major brand has any sort of offering ready or even near to ready to come to the market. The prizes for those who do crack the mobile Bingo challenge are great, Juniper Research estimates that the mobile gaming could be worth $16b a year by 2012, and it 3 years time mobile Bingo could see a growth of 40%, with the same for mobile betting. I'm guessing though, that these figures rely on a substantially improved availability of mobile Bingo first, and going by what was said by Charles Palmer of mobile gaming comapny Mfuse - we might not be much further on come this time next year.

Bingo Software Developments

Unlike the mobile arena, the online Bingo platform is one I feel quite comfortable with. Given the time I spend reviewing and trying out online Bingo sites, I've taken a strong interest in the software that powers the games. For me the software is the most essential piece of the online Bingo experience, and can prove the difference between me staying at a site or moving on to pastures new. During the summit, there was some general talk about the software and development side of it - and I got a chance to look at some other software related stuff in the exhibition space.

The popular Virtue Fusion were exhibiting, offering a look at their technology. It powers a diverse range of sites such as Ladbrokes Bingo and Mecca Bingo and I have to say I really like their online Bingo software, it's clean, fun and easy to use. However, it has to be said it currently lacks a few features over that of the other suppliers out there.

I have to admit that I'm a massive fan of the Parlay software - it's the most user friendly, has some great touches and feels fun to play. Up until now it's stood out in it's many guises powering a number of sites. With its own innovations like Bingo Bets it's long been my platform of choice. I think Virtue Fusion has a slight heads up with its look, but after speaking to the rep on the stand, it will very soon have the features it's currently missing.

For me it's this missing functionality that puts it behind Parlay in my estimation, specifically, the auto buy and pre buy features that have long been conspicuous by their absence. There's also a new side bets component called Bet On Bingo that I've not seen before, and not to dissimilar to Parlay's side games. With these in place, it'll certainly be up there in my estimations as a software of choice.

But that said, both Parlay and Virtue Fusion may be eclipsed in my estimations by what I saw over at the Tombola stand - The Sun's online Bingo platform. I have to say here before I go into this, I've been neglectful of The Sun's Bingo offering. I've not yet gotten around to looking at it at all before now, due to a lack of time. That was until I saw the demo at the summit - what I saw there impressed the socks off me and will have me bumping their site up to the top of my to review list. They run their own software, and have put into place both an amazing interface and for my money, some well thought out player limitations to give everyone a chance. As a standalone platform, Tombola have a number of innovations I've not seen before, and ones that the rest of the industry might want to consider employing.

Firstly, there is a low maximum number of tickets that can be bought each game - up to £2 worth. This has the effect of leveling the playing field between casual and hardcore players. It stops players maxing out their tickets beyond reasonable levels and giving them an unfair advantage over your average fun player who's going in and only playing a strip of a few ticket - it's a simple idea, but one I think should be spread. They also use smaller jackpots, but make them winnable - this is also appealing to players in my opinion.

I was also amazed to see something that The Sun Bingo offers that I've not seen elsewhere, an 80 ball version of the game based on the old Party / Four Square boards - right down to having the old fashioned shutters that push across. Like Bingo Bets, there are a couple of Bingo powered side games such as the Hamster Racing. The actual software looks really slick and has a real fun feel about it. I'm not sure if they plan licensing it out - but if they do, it could be a winner.

Security And Payment Technologies

There were also a number of sessions on payment methods and strategies, as well as security to protect against Fraud. I'll return to payment methods in a moment, but one thing that caught my eye was the presentation by iovation. They featured their system that was aimed at detecting fraud at online gaming sites.

They provide a means of pooling information between gaming sites to provide a means of identifying fraudulent behaviour. It caught my attention because it works around a number of potentially spoofable means for fraudsters to slip under the radar of online Bingo operators, such as using proxies and anonymizers. As well as monitoring the behaviour of players, it uses hardware finger printing to identify the machines causing issues, instead of focusing on the user.

I wanted to learn more about how the service works to this end. The idea is an interesting one from a security point of view. With many easy ways of hiding the identity of your computer available to pretty unsavvy web users, this sounded like a pretty powerful means of direction. Unless you had a bank of computers to sign up on, this could prove a great means of keeping fraud out of the online Bingo world. I didn't get a chance to question the mechanics of how it works, whether it would be something players would have to volunteer information too, or if it just worked seamlessly from the players perspective. That aside, the idea is a powerful one that I can see growing in necessity as time goes on.

Click And Buy gave a presentation on their service which offered a range of payment methods that Bingo operators could add to their payment services. It was unique in it allowed players to fund their Bingo accounts using diverse methods other than the traditional cards and payment services. They've had their profile raised in the online Bingo world recently by being chosen as the preferred funding method for ITV's Emmerdale Bingo. The account can be funded by a number of non-standard top up methods including via the telephone bill and over the counter at retail tills. The importance of adding a service like Click and Buy to a Bingo operator was that it could cover the many holes in funding options at their site, and give them access to new markets worried about using traditional cards for online gaming.

Another payment method featured was the Snap Card - this is a pre-pay card that can also be bought and topped up from retail outlets. One innovation that the Snap card featured was the potential as a new channel for advertising online Bingo with on card branding. One was shown that pictured the familiar Ruby Bingo graphics and added a special offer to players.

Whilst both these cards offer unique methods for funding online Bingo games, I'm still waiting to hear one of the bigger retail chains come up with their own pre-pay over the counter solution. Whilst many non-traditional players would not having a problem using their cards online, I know many in the retail Bingo area would - be it because they don't have them or don't trust them. The ideal solution would be an over the counter pre-pay method that ties in with the online site, and the inverse for collecting winnings. I can't see how it would be a third party payment method at present, I think the Bingo companies would have to develop this themselves.

All 2nd Online Bingo Summit Articles

Author: David Lloyd - October 2007

Related Links And Resources

Mfuse
Sun Bingo / Tombola
Virtue Fusion
Iovation
Click And Buy
Snap Card

Back to Bingo Articles And Interviews Index

Back To Playing Bingo Homepage

Latest News And Forum Posts