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Thursday, 27 November 2008

3/4 of the club celebrate..........1/4 doesn't!!!!!!

Great article this about a club in Brighton winning the Gala Hi Five jackpot and winning around £700,000. Half that total being given to the winning ticket holder and the rest being dished out to all the other participating players in the hall who took away over £1000 each!!!!!!!

The thing that makes me chuckle in a totally malicious way however is the fact that out of the 320 people playing that afternoon session of bingo, 81 people (just over a 1/4) did not receive a penny because they did not choose to play the extra game!!!!!!!!! I bet a few of them had a whinge at the manager afterwards as well (nobody told me if I wanted it...etc....etc.....etc) The bottom line is they have only got themselves to blame.

It would be interesting to see how many other clubs have the same amount of people who 'opt out' of these big money games?

If I was playing in a Gala club I would opt into the Hi Five game every time-especially now that the National game is not available; it is the only game that offers such a life-changing amount; and 239 people in that club are going to have a fantastic xmas and new year.........WELL DONE!!!!!

I

Posted by Brett at 23:41 | Add your comments [0] | Links |

Sunday, 23 November 2008

re:bingo night live

After reading about the end of the ITV bingo show I can't say that I am surprised about the news. It was a great idea and an excellently produced show, but it had a lot of things going against it:

Firstly the show was obviously an hour long advert for ITV online. Anyone winning one of the smaller prizes were nudged to spend there 'winnings' on the website to avoid a long and drawn out process to actually recieve the money in their hand. I wonder how many people kept on playing on the website after there winnings had been spent?

Secondly the show did not require you to actually 'play' the game. Once you registered your tickets for that nights game any wins would automatically be sent to your email address. I think I must have played the game about 30 odd times during the shows run....and I probably watched about 3 full episodes playing along with the games........and I'm sure I am not on my own.

Also I feel that the show missed out on a perfect opportunity to actually make some money on a national tv channel. Bingolotto on Virgin tried this not so long ago and failed; but a huge company like ITV could have made a 'paid' bingo game attractive to players all over the country.....especially if it was given an earlier start. If the 200,000 players all paid £1 each for one massive game of bingo (via the website, or SMS, or phone) then ITV could have taken half and still put £100,000 on the prize board to be guaranteed to be won in no matter how many calls. I know I would play THAT for a quid!!!!!!

Finally, and I know it is just me (and every other bingo caller in the land-I hope!) but some of the calling was absolutely pants!!!! especially Anthony and his double numbers: '4 and 4.........fourty-four'!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!? when was the last time you were in a club and heard a caller say that?!!!!!! They could have at least 'entered' a bingo club and spoken to a caller to get some advice on how to call the game.

Hey, I still think they should have got a REAL caller to do the games.........maybe someone who was once the best bingo caller in the country.......around 2006/07............balding............yet still smouldering and intriguing........hmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!

Posted by Brett at 17:37 | Add your comments [0] | Links |

Sunday, 9 November 2008

National bingo caller time of the year........well it would have been!!!

It is around this time of year when normally this site and my blog would be full of news about the National Bingo caller of the year competition: but as the contest is suspended this year this months rambling piece will be more reflective on my experiences as being a contestant and a former title holder!

The first thing I noticed when I got through to the final rounds of the competition in the first year is that I am not the only one who takes this whole calling thing seriously. From the regional heats, right through to the weekends grand finale in London, every caller that I have met has been as eager as I have about the industry. Its an unusual feeling to be having conversations about bingo with people without thinking that they are bored and have no connection with what you are saying. Most of the time in the 'real' world when you go to parties or events you generally meet people who work in IT, or in a shop. When you tell someone that you are a bingo caller the first question they normally ask is 'ahhhh and what else do you do?' Closely followed by 'haha legs eleven and mmmmmmmm 69!!!!!!' (wheres my baseball bat!) In the competition however, when you are speaking to someone about Dotty who always has to have 5 tickets from the top and has to sit on table 122 facing the diner, you know that the person you are talking to have gone through the same thing in there club. That is the first thing that I think will be a detriment to the abandonment of the contest: Before the competition the only other callers I have ever spoken to were the other people who called in my club: and the majority of them never wanted to call the numbers in the first place (and you could tell that by the bored tone in there numbers which would emanate across the club and destroy the session) the contest fueled my interest in the game and made me believe that being a caller was more than just 'calling the numbers' because there were people out there who were just as obsessed as me!!!

I think of the caller of the year in two ways: Firstly as an intensive attack on my nerves and abilities over the course of the contest. I remember my very first regional final when I had butterflies in my tummy about 2 days before the actual event and I remember banning my girlfriend from talking to me the night before as I had to memorise my routine for the 'entertainment' stage of the competition. This sort of unreasonable behaviour was more or less there in every final since: including the year I won, and after speaking to other contestants i was not on my own in the nerves stakes.

The other thing I think about is the media and press coverage garnered from the contest. The main thing about the whole event is bringing bingo to the masses-and throughout the whole process of the competition, from regional to national final i suppose you feel like a celebrity: You and your club are contacted by the local press, radio stations and sometimes the local TV about getting interviews. The main reason that the final of the competition is always held in London is because that is where you can achieve maximum exposure from a media perspective. Sky News have been at the event for the last few years and last year even though I was not a contestant I still had about half a dozen interviews with reporters and TV stations. In terms of hard cash, £652,000 is the total you would have had to spend if you wanted to pay for that kind of publicity in the 2007 competition!!!!

Obviously none of this is going on this year due to the competitions postponement and the person I feel sorry for most is the current champion Blake Robson: Of course he has the title and the prize money and the fantastic holiday (all good things) but its the other things that he will be missing out on like being a judge and experiencing other bingo halls across the country; not to mention the media opportunities that pop up during the course of the contest. Hopefully when they revamp the competition Blake will get the opportunity to experience those perils!!!!





Posted by Brett at 14:45 | Add your comments [3] | Links |

Wednesday, 5 November 2008

armed robbery in the bingo

It has been a while since I have said this: Armed robbery in the bingo!!!!
A club in bradford has recently been robbed at knifepoint, no-one was hurt but they still left with a bundle of cash.

This story reminds me of a couple of years ago when a glut of bingo clubs in London and the South-East were targeted by a gang of armed robbers over the course of a few months. I was still working in Bognor at the time and even though we escaped an attack, we were still on tenterhooks and security was beefed up to deter anything like that happening in our club.

It's one thing to be victim to a robbery but another when it involves weapons and threatening behaviour. My thoughts go out with the staff and players at the Bradford club and I hope the perpetrators will be caught swiftly and punished fully.

Posted by Brett at 23:38 | Add your comments [0] | Links |

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