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3rd Online Bingo Summit 2008 - Understanding And Misunderstanding The Audience

Exhibition hall at the Online Bingo Summit Surely, the most important element of any online Bingo site is the players. There was a lot of talk about them during the summit, how to get their money, how to keep them playing, how to entertain them and more. In this article I want to cover some of this player focused discussion. You'll have to indulge me here, but I'm also going to have a bit of a moan about what I personally feel are some big misunderstandings and assumptions coming from within the online Bingo industry.

I really feel that within the industry there is a certain mindset that is quite closed, and very focused on what online Bingo is about. This is understandable, because above all else, Bingo is a commercial enterprise and like any commercial enterprise it forces a certain mindset and narrow field of view. That said, some things said at the summit gives me the impression that people in the online industry are not really seeing their players in as wondrous a light as they should be.

A Different Perspective And Make Up To Retail Bingo

From what I've seen of the people working in the online industry, there's one missing element that I think really hampers them from a Bingo perspective and that is that most of them aren't really that interested in Bingo. Now, that may seem like a bit of a startling proclamation, but hear me out here and I'll try to explain. If you work in retail Bingo, you're automatically forced into direct contact with the game, the players, the culture and all that side of it that online Bingo workers don't deal with (excepting chat hosts).

As well as this divorced position from the social aspect of the game and its players, the actual demographic working in online Bingo is very different to the typical demographic working in retail Bingo. There are some sweeping generalisations here, but broadly speaking, the majority of staff working in Bingo halls up and down the country come from the lower ranks of society. This is in sharp contrast with the business suited, more educated and financed people who work in online Bingo. This gives rise to a different dynamic of motivation and approaches to business, and it's my belief that in some cases online Bingo sometimes suffers as a result of this more business motivated mindset.

This is not to belittle anyone working in either field, on the contrary, if online operators become aware of this different dynamic they have to their players, they can react to the challenge of trying to improve things for their customers, without whom, they have no business. I'm lucky in some ways as I've had experience working in retail as well as having this glimpse into the way online works. I personally believe the two separate entities should strive to be closer to each other than they currently are. With that in mind, there is going to be a lot more personal opinion involved in this piece alongside information about the summit.

I Am A Bingo Player, Not Just A Number

It's telling that the number of people at the summit who actually regularly play Bingo is very small. Of the people I spoke, several admitted they don't actually like Bingo, others said they don't play it and others seemed fairly dismissive of your average Bingo player, relying on easy assumptions and misguided profiling. Last year the question was asked how many people in the room had actually played Bingo, and less than half the people raised their hands. I don't think a similar straw poll was taken this year, but I'm fairly certain the split would have been the same.

I think this removal from direct involvement with the customer has led to complacency in some quarters and also some disdain towards punters. At one point one speaker mentioned he wasn't sure he wanted a nanny who played Bingo online looking after his children. In another session online Bingo players were likened to monkeys in a cage that would mindlessly spend their money when prodded with the right stimulus.

Now, retail Bingo and online Bingo both exist to make money, there is no denying they are both the same in this respect. In my opinion, the making money part seems to be the main focus of online Bingo, sometimes at the expense of what actually makes Bingo in a hall fun and entertaining. The whole set up of the game in the online environment is to encourage playing and spending without limits. How do I mean? Well just imagine some of the stuff that happens in online Bingo happening in a real Bingo hall...

The regulars are all sat down with their books, waiting to play when in walks a new player. The manager of the club gives them £10 free just to sit down and play. The regulars look on in disgust. The new player tries to spread his cards out in front of him, but there's not much room on the top of the table as there's a fruit machine and roulette wheel slap bang in front of him.

The next night, this new player comes in again, this time to pay to play. He goes up and buys his tickets; instead of free money he's given a match bonus and gets twice as many books. The regulars look on in disgust. Now, this new player is no mug, everyone else in the hall has one book to play on. He goes up and buys 10 books to play at once. He's not daft though; he's playing in the hall next door as well! You can understand why the regulars are a bit miffed; maybe they should start buying three or four strips to keep up. The club manager rubs his hands in glee, with the higher par fees he's charging everyone tonight, he's raking it in.

Then one of the regulars wins, a line. They've just won £25 and it's made their night. They go to leave the hall but are told they can't take the money with them as the minimum cash-out is £30. Elsewhere, a new player wins £200 on their deposit match cards and goes to leave. Likewise they're told they can't, the manager takes them to one side and tells them they have to spend their £200 eight times before they are able to leave the building with it. They're kindly pointed back in to the hall where rows of shiny slots that take up to £10 a credit to play are waiting for them ominously. Then an announcement goes over the PA, starting from tomorrow, the 5 players who spend the most amount of money the next week will win £10 each, so get spending!

Ok, can you see my point? Online Bingo is set up in a way to maximise the potential money the operator can gain from it with little regard for the quality of the experience for the player. This wouldn't happen in the real world but it's easy to get away with in the online world as the operator has no personal contact with the player. It's fair to say that not all sites operate like this, places like the Tomobola powered Sun Bingo have tried to eschew these methodologies in favour of a more retail type of game. They understand the retail world and have tried to incorporate its dynamics into their offering. The majority of other online Bingo sites are far from doing similar.

At one point on a panel on Bingo software, one operator asked why the maximum number of tickets allowed per game was only 99? The reply was along the lines of it was easy to set it up to make it more. Personally, what I would have liked to have heard is 'how can we limit the amount of tickets available per game to make it fairer for everyone' but I don't think that's a question I'm ever likely to hear at the summit!

If the practices that online Bingo halls used were tried out in a real club, there would be blood on the Party Bingo boards. Online players should be treated the same as retail players. Their money will be taken, but the players will have an entertaining night as a result and not be harried into spending money they don't want to by in your face paraphernalia in the game window. Like slots and casino games.

In fact, I 'd go one further and suggest that online Bingo operators spend a day or two a week working in the retail space. Some do occasionally send their staff out for the odd game, but for me that's not enough. You need to eat, drink and sleep Bingo for a period of time to really get the feel of the culture and intricacies of the game and the way people play in the real world. Obviously the personal aspect can't really be replicated online, but there are other ways to make players feel welcome and entertained.

It'll be interesting to see if online Bingo is able to get over this need to make people spend money and try and offer some entertainment and personal service in the same way the retail version is able too. There were some glimmers of hope during the summit, a couple of times it was mentioned that it was important for players to win as much as it was to lose. There was also talk of the appeal of jackpots for players, and the need to make them achievable. This is another positive move to my mind that will benefit the players.

What About The Men?

Over the last couple of years I've devoted more than a few words to online Bingo's insistence on painting itself as a women's game. The summit raised this bugbear of mine once more, and a number of panels touched on the subject of online Bingo's (incorrectly skewed) demographics. Fortunately there was also some positive messages and figures that support my argument and hopefully could be used as proof positive to snap the industry out of its misguided notion that a narrow demographic of females is the best place to market too and design their sites around.

A number of sites have already got the message and make a point of marketing in a way that attracts male and female players. They make sites that look good without resorting to big swathes of pink and cartoon lady characters and as a result they have sites where there are a large number of men playing as well as women. For those that don't try to make their sites gender neutral it's not surprising that they have a high percentage of female players vs male players, and here in lies the crux of the problem.

Now, these sites with a heavy female slant always lean heavily on the general figures given out that about 85% of online Bingo players are women, and that a very specific niche of women are their ideal audience. So, what do they do as a result of theses figures? They target this specific sector mercilessly and build their sites and brand around attracting that audience. Once again I'll use the analogy of a real hall, and it's when you go to a real hall you soon see that none of this gender targeting happens. Colour schemes are bright and attractive without being feminine, most of the decor and posters are gender neutral, there is no emphasis on one sex or the other.

Why doesn't the gender bias of the online Bingo world happen in the retail world? Well, it would be crazy for a retail club to actively behave in a manner that would exclude half of their potential audience. Retail Bingo knows it wants both men and women at their clubs because at the end of the Bingo session, if there are more players it makes more money. When I worked in Bingo there was always a good strong showing from the blokes. Ok, there was still a skew toward the women that was probably two-thirds to three-quarters women to men, but the point is, men do enjoy Bingo. When they go to a club, they aren't made to feel like they are in a female environment.

This in turn gives men the confidence to get other men to go to Bingo with them. Increasingly I see groups of bloke at the Bingo hall I play at. For years there have been blokes going to Bingo on their own or with their partners. In fact I have often seen workmen going into the Bingo hall for the lunchtime session, specifically so they can have a cheap lunch and a pint whilst they also get the entertainment of a game on their break. If the club's decor and environment is conducive to attracting males, they will come with little care of being called names or pointed at.

However, online this isn't the case - sites like 888 Ladies, Party Bingo, Foxy Bingo etc all have an environment that's attractive to females whilst repellent to men. These notions and design choices have been in evidence since online Bingo took to the web. And here's another place that online Bingo is assuming about the tastes of its customers. There are plenty of women out there who find these stylings as off putting as the men - and if a certain, more educated / professional female is the new growth area in Bingo, why on earth would they find a pool full of pink balls or a nagged housewife an appealing image to get them interested in Bingo?

And talking about the figures that point to a high percentage of 20-45 year old females playing online Bingo, where did they come from? Were the sites involved in the calculation of the figures showing a strong female bias in their marketing and design, and was these factors taken into account? The truth is I don't know, but personally I think these factors were a big influence in how these stats turned out. What's more, these stats have now become a self-fulfilling prophecy and are continuing to drive online Bingo to brand itself in the main as a women's game. As it is they're effectively shutting men out of the equation and continuing to feed on this ludicrous notion that to make money it has to target and brand itself for a certain type of woman only.

Now, you just need to take a step back from the figures and notions that UK online Bingo industry has so melded itself to and take a look elsewhere at sites that are doing it right, and the figures and facts from other Bingo related areas. So, let's do just that. I'll start with Sun Bingo (in its current form) and look at them. They offer Bingo in a fairly gender neutral site design. Their TV and print marketing shows both men and women playing Bingo. They are the biggest online Bingo site. At last year's summit they revealed their split of players was nearly 50 / 50 male to female. Any ideas why this might be?

Irene Gahan gives his presentation Not convinced? Ok, switch forward to this year's summit. During Irene Gahan's presentation on Rehab Bingo she talks about how they've marketed the game in Ireland. Rehab Bingo is going great guns over there, and she notes that Ireland is a country with no real tradition in retail Bingo, let alone online bingo. Now, their site, like The Sun's is pretty gender neutral, despite being fronted by a lady. They've been marketing their site in Ireland in a number of ways, most notably with the sponsorship of a top-flight football team. She reveals that Rehab Bingo's player split is 45% male to 55% female players. Once again I ask, any idea why this might be?

If you're still not convinced, then let's take a look to Europe. This figure popped up last year, and once again this year. In Spain, more men play Bingo online than women. There are some cultural differences around why this is, but still, it shows you men like to play Bingo. Sweden's state run Svenska Spel also has more male Bingo players than female. Outside of the summit just last week a Liverpool Echo feature on the Bingo Night Live statistician Nicola Dixon quoted her thus, "The figures are great and the number of people registering to play on the ITV website is going up all the time - my husband Edward’s a fire-fighter and all his mates are addicted to it." I've bolded the important passage there for those UK online Bingo sites that might have skimmed over it.

So, this begs the question. If men like playing Bingo, spend money on Bingo and are wanting to play Bingo, then why are so many UK operators making it hard for them to do so? With all the talk about overseas markets and new markets, maybe some of these sites should concentrate on this UK based market that's largely being ignored and in some ways, completely alienated from the game. If online Bingo operators would rather not take the male pound, then they are welcome to send it this way. I'm hoping a few offenders may read this, and if that's the case, get of your arses and do something about it before your sexist marketing makes it impossible for men to feel comfortable whilst having a game of Bingo.

High Rolling Big Stakes At Odds With Bingo

There was some discussion over the two days about player protection and responsibility towards the players. The industry is good at offering ways to help problem gamblers, in some ways more so than in the retail world. There was talk off pooling information on problem gamblers between sites as well as mechanisms and procedures in helping players exclude themselves and get help.

Along the theme of finding and stopping problem gamblers, David Nordberg talked about online Bingo in Sweden. It was interesting to note that they have a high instance of problem players (around 10%) in Sweden. They have tried to actively help their players help themselves by giving those that voulnteer an artificially intelligent software called Player Scan which watches a gamers spending and alerts them when they are going out of control. It would be interesting to see this sort of software brought to the UK market, especially given certain sectors of the tabloid press looking to slate online gaming at every opportunity.

It's good to see this level of concern in the industry, but I still have some concerns about the way online Bingo is presented that possibly encourage players to spend more than they should. I've already touched on this, but traditionally Bingo is a pretty low stakes game in the retail world. Online Bingo likes to portray itself as good value, but at the same time it offers slots and side games that have a variance of pricing that could potentially cause problems to any potential problem gamblers at the site. I've seen slots that cost £20+ per spin on Bingo sites, and to me that's very much at odds with the low stakes nature of traditional Bingo, as is allowing players to buy 100s of tickets in one game.

Personally I think that if online Bingo wants its responsibility to its players to be taken seriously, it should look at toning these sorts of high stakes games down in the future. These sort of high cost side games might sit fine at online casino sites, but Bingo is not casino, not by a long chalk. Unfortunately, as many in the industry know, like retail a large portion of the profits come from these side games. It's not an area I'm hopeful in seeing improvements in, but whilst there are people out there like Tombola who avoid such side games, they are very much in the minority.

It's a real shame there wasn't a specific panel on the area of problem gamblers. There was a booth set up in the exhibition space with a representative of Gambling Therapy, but he didn't seem very busy the times I was out on a tea break. The lack of interest in the booth was a bit worrying, especially as Gambling Therapy is sponsored by a number of big name gaming enterprises. I hope next year there will be some more focused discussion around the topic of problem gamblers and Bingo and ways to limit spending on the sites can at least be floated and discussed openly.

The One Missing Payment Method

The PaySafeCard presentation Finally, like most of what I've written here, it's from the perspective of a Bingo hall player in the online world. This is something I mentioned last year, but I still believe that there's still one key enabler to get traditional retail players online that has not been utilised, and that's a retail payment solution that works online. This summit there was only one presentation given about a single payment method, as opposed to last year where there were three payment methods featured.

PaySafeCard gave a presentation on their over the counter payment method that can be used to fund Bingo accounts. Basically, you can go to one of the suppliers, buy a prepaid card and then add it to your Bingo account. The more payment methods made available to players the better for operators. There were figures given around the number of people who don't have a credit card or similar, and they were quite interesting. In parts of Europe the figure without a credit card is around 67%. In the UK 70% of the demographic groups D and E don't have a credit card, and a large number from those groups enjoy Bingo in the retail environment.

On the face of it, PaySafeCard and similar prepaid cards offer a good alternative to attract both the groups without cards and those who may be wary of using a card online. However, for my money there is one fatal flaw. Whilst it's easy to get money onto the cards and then onto the sites, it's not easy to get it back off again if you have a win. Typically you need some sort of bank account or card to be able to get any winnings out of the account, which for me defeats the purpose of using them.

What's still missing and very much needed is a system that allows players to do what on the face of it seems a very simple thing. Basically, what would lure many players online would be the ability to walk to a till, pay their money and then load it into the Bingo site of their choice. So far this can be done, but it's the second part that the problem. In the event of a win by the players, they get a voucher they can take from the Bingo site, walk into the same retail location and get paid the money directly back to them, no ID required, no card or anything. That I think would be the ideal scenario for a lot of potential players out there.

It amazes me someone like Gala or Mecca Bingo haven't managed to implement a system like this yet. I think it could be the ideal way for them to encourage some of their more reticent users to go online and try they game. One Bingo hall manager I've spoke too on this subject mentioned he's been looking for a system that can do just that himself, as it would be just the thing to get certain elements in his club to try the game online. Let's see if anyone can make this leap before the next summit comes around.

All 3rd Online Bingo Summit Articles

Introduction
The Bingo Landscape Today
Television - The Next New Bingo Thing
Understanding And Misunderstanding The Audience
Miscellaneous - Bingo Awards, Legal, Affiliates And The Network Debate

Author: David Lloyd - July 2008

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