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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

New Sun Bingo Has Launched - A Quick Review

Well, after all the speculation, the new Sun Bingo has launched. It's early days, the site has only been online less than an hour, but I thought I would give a brief review of what new Sun Bingo players can expect. Forget about my concerns about it being like Jackpot Joy, they have managed to produce a very similar feeling site to the old one, and have also managed to keep the same value and ticket limits as well.

The chat is set up in the same fashion with a number of games split into separate rooms - however, so far it seems all the 90 ball rooms are around 1 room unlike the 5 at Tombola. So far it's been pretty hectic in there, with a noticeable amount of confusion from some players who are looking for the old games and rooms which are now at the Tombola site. The CMs (or Hosts as they are now called) seemed to be letting a lot of the people moaning about things have their say, which is always a good thing. They do seem to be a bit inundated with the amount of chat, but I'm sure they'll soon get used to it.

The side games that I feared would be taking over the site have not materialised. There are a number of other side games you can play at the site, but none of them cost anything more than 10p to play. That said, one of the hosts mentioned that more games were planned, so it might only be a matter of time before the likes of the multi-line slots and Deal or no Deal are added to the line-up. Time will tell on that.

So far things look good, but there are a number of problems that will need to be addressed. For instance, the tickets you buy aren't right. I raised this problem with Jackpot Joy in the past. They don't give you traditional strips with no repeating numbers. The same is true here - you can buy up to 4 strips of tickets, which I have done. That means that I should see the same number 4 times, and 4 times only. This isn't happening though. I've seen numbers come up on 3 tickets and 5 tickets from the first call, so the tickets you buy are not continuous like traditional bingo tickets.

There are also other problems. In chat they've been having problems with the word filters. A number of players are complaining that certain words are being banned that shouldn't be. Also, players seem a bit miffed with the chat games, as they have been told they won't receive their chat game prizes for 24 hours. Lots of players were upset that their familiar CMs were not in evidence, one person asking if they'd been sacked! There are also lots of complaints about the huge font size that makes it difficult to follow the conversations, given how fast the chat scrolls off the screen.

There's obviously been a lot of thought into how to make the new Sun Bingo like the old Sun Bingo. It's still very early days, so teething problems should be expected. The ticket thing is particularly annoying and I hope they sort that out instantly. People have bought it up in chat and been told to ring the customer support line, which I don't think is the right response. I never checked Jackpot Joy to see if they fixed the ticket sequence issue there, it may be this is a fault in the Gamesys Bingo engine that's just ported over to the new site.

It will be interesting to see if following this split, Sun Bingo is able to hang on to its current leading position. It has a lot of work to do yet, I've seen a number of people in chat less than impressed and saying they would not stick around beyond their initial visit and free money. Currently Tombola has many more players at its site that Sun Bingo does, so this would suggest they have managed to do enough to keep their loyal players and get the message out about the split and the options for Sun Bingo players to stay with them. But, as I've already said, it's early days yet. I'll be following this one with great interest.

Posted at 12:57 AM | Add your comments [0] | Links |

Monday, August 25, 2008

"Anti-Gambling" Daily Mail Launches Own Bingo Site

You have to smile at the Daily Mail. I've moaned about their hypocrisy before on this site with their crusade against casinos and gambling. You just have to look at the way their recent negative campaigns and stories about gambling to see their hypocrisy, especially as they've just launched their own online Bingo site (again).

Don't believe me on their anti-gambling panic-inducing spin? Well, look at this story about the recent Gambling Commission report into the prevalence of problem gambling. Whilst many media outlets highlighted the fact that percentage of problem gamblers hadn't grown since the last report, the mail instead choose to go with their usual doom and gloom.

With all the editorial concern about gambling, the anti-casino campaign, you'd think the Mail would look at its own ship first. But no, for decades they had Bingo and scratch cards given away with their paper, and their first online Bingo site was shut down in a hail of complaints about dodgy practice. Not put off by any of their own editorial, they have now re-launched their online Bingo offering thanks to a partnership with St Minver.

It will be interesting to see how much marketing they do for their own site in their papers. Obviously, the model they'd want to follow would be The Sun's with its meteoric rise to the top of the online Bingo world. However, with all this anti-gambling rhetoric and editorial, it will have to watch its step in order not to upset the very people its been pontificating too.

I don't think the Daily Mail has really planned for success here, I can't see them reaching the same sort of levels with St Minver, which as of yet still seems intent on keeping their offering fairly limited when compared to other Bingo sites. Well, good luck to them in their venture, but personally I can't see me wanting to spend any money with a media brand with such hypocritical views on gambling.

Posted at 5:40 PM | Add your comments [0] | Links |

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Big Bingo Balls For Ladbrokes Bingo

Well, more advertising news from you from the online Bingo world, this time looking at the filming of Ladbrokes Bingo's next advertising campaign. The advert is being filmed on the streets of Liverpool, with 180 extras rolling giant Bingo balls down the road whilst there's nods to the defunct Bingo language that online Bingo likes so much. You know what I mean, there'll be two fat ladies and a legs eleven and all that nonsense. In fact, if you substituted the giant Bingo balls for a fluffy fox type bloke, you could be forgiven for thinking it was the Foxy advert all over again.

But no, I can't believe that for one second?! Would such a respected and acclaimed advertising agency such as M&C Saatchi be responsible for such an unimaginative and cliché ridden advertising campaign? Well, looks like it. I know it's early days yet, but looking at the advert photographs and the write up, that's exactly the sort of lame advert we can look forward to in September. I wonder if any blokes will be in there rolling the balls as well, especially given the 'macho' nature of Ladbrokes as a brand. I'll be watching with interest...

Posted at 1:32 PM | Add your comments [0] | Links |

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

MP In Fails To Get Foxy Bingo Advert Banned

Keeping it online Bingo advertising related, I've just spotted this report in The Guardian about the infamous (around these parts at least) Foxy Bingo advert. Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat culture spokesman complaint centres around the advert's promoting of the £10 free offer at Foxy Bingo (which is no longer available). The MP complain that the £10 free was misleading as it wasn't free, you would need to have at least £30 in your account to make a withdrawal.

Frankly, the complaint seems to show a complete lack of understanding about special offers and the like, from what I've read the MP in question was thinking you could just sign up and take away £10 for nothing. It must be said that's even more ludicrous than an MP's allowances standards. The ASA agreed, and rejected Don Foster's complaint stating that no "significant conditions" were omitted from the ad. Seriously, you'd think an MP would be a bit more supportive of an industry that's doing over £600 million pounds of business in the UK every year, but we already know how un-supportive of Bingo people in Government are.

Posted at 12:47 PM | Add your comments [0] | Links |

Wink Bingo Press Advert Banned

Just a quick note on the latest Bingo themed Advertising Standards Agency ruling. Spotted earlier that one of Wink Bingo's press adverts has been banned by the ASA. The advert featured a nurse in a maternity ward playing Bingo online rather than attending to her patient. The headline read 'Find An Appropriate Moment.' The complain raised was that the advert breached the advertising code in these areas: 1. portraying gambling as taking priority over professional commitments and 2. showing gambling in a working environment.

Spacebar, the people behind the advert responded that they were trying to differentiate Wink Bingo by making the brand "irreverent, cheeky, sassy and a bit naughty". They also claimed that the advert was made in such a way that its surreal aspects would help viewers realise that the advert was cartoon like, and the appropriate moment headline would warn viewers against doing what the advert portrayed.

The ASA was having none of it though, and concluded that despite this surreal element, the ad's headline could be seen to condone the sort of behaviour the advert portrayed. It ruled that "the ad breached CAP Code clauses 2.2 (Social responsibility), 57.4 (e) and 57.4 (t) (Gambling)". You can read the full ASA ruling on Wink Bingo here.

Posted at 11:11 AM | Add your comments [0] | Links |

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Rank Profits Down, Guoco And Genting Shareholdings Up

You'll have to forgive the lateness of this post, I've been away the last week, and I'm just clearing out my email backlog when I spotted this story about Rank at the bottom of the stack. It's over a week old, but of if you haven't already seen it, then it's worth noting. There's a good write up about the company's interim report at Forbes, and rather than pick the highlights, you can read it yourself here.

It's worth noting that there is some positive news despite the gloomy figures, Ian Burke reckons the company has "stabilised its financial performance" which is good news, and there are improvements over the latter six months of 2007 when the Smoking Ban was first brought in. It's also worth noting that aside from this report, the Guoco Group is increasing to raise its shareholdings in the Rank Group, recently it announced it increased to an 18.08% share of the groups's stocks. Genting are still in the running too, they've been increasing their stake in the company and now hold 12.67% of the group's stocks.

With the threat of a takeover looming, and difficuly trading conditions ahead with the credit crunch to worry about as well, it looks like the industry as a whole is in for continued rough weather and heavy sailing. Here's hoping the small improvements the Rank Group have seen can keep the company going and in its present form.

Posted at 10:34 PM | Add your comments [0] | Links |

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