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Saturday, 17 January 2009

More on the Presidents step mum.......

The last post about Obama's mum was taken from a local newspaper's website...........now she's nationwide baby yeah!!!!!
Appearing in the majority of the papers yesterday was the story of Kezia going to her Step-sons inauguration with various plugs from different companies along the way!!!!!
I hope she has a great time; but one piece of news will delight us lot: She has said that she will never leave Britain because she would miss her 'Sunday roasts' and her 'Bingo'......Good on ya girl!!!!

Posted by Brett at 11:47 | Add your comments [0] | Links |

Sunday, 11 January 2009

The President's mum is shouting (the white) house!!!!

Remember the article I wrote last year about the president of the united states step-mother being a huge bingo fan.........well she is back!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She is promoting a special game of bingo for the Sue Ryder charity which is being held at galabingo.com which is being run around the same time as she jets off to the States to be there for her little boy's presidential inauguration!!!!!!

Hopefully she can persuade the president to visit her in blighty soon so she can take him down her local club for a game!!!!!!!! Now that would put the UK bingo industry on the map!!!!!

Oh and P.S: Are you like me and watch all of those high-tech espionage films where they say that the US government have 'trigger words' that they look out for on the internet so that they can intercept any potential terrorist threats? I'm sure that 'president of the United states' is one of them?!  If so, then........HELLO THERE GOVERNMENT TYPE OFFICIAL PEOPLE. HOPE YOU LIKE THE BLOG.......IF YOU EVER ARE IN THE UK THEN VISIT A BINGO CLUB ONE DAY.......BUT BE WARNED: IT IS A LOT QUICKER THEN THE U.S VERSION........DON'T WORRY THOUGH, THE LADY ON THE TABLE NEXT TO YOU WILL HELP YOU OUT. HAVE A NICE DAY!!!!!!

Posted by Brett at 05:24 | Add your comments [0] | Links |

Monday, 5 January 2009

eh? customer complains over winnings fiasco.......

hello and welcome. my first piece of news from 2009 centres around this article . If you don't click on the link basically it is a story of a woman who won a big game at her local club, thinking that she had won £250,000 when instead she had only won £5,000!
To be honest with you....because I haven't worked in a bingo hall for the last year and a half, I can't be sure who to believe here.......my first theory was that it was the National game and she called it quick....but not quick enough to win the jackpot prize, or that it could be the bingo companies own link based game. The main question is though; why was the customer not told on the night her true winning prize?
For those of you who rarely visit the halls, when a game like the National is played, there is a specified amount of time a club has to wait before being told the results. (a lot like the national lotto game where the early results are announced an hour or so after the draw has been made) Now I remember loads of occasions in my time where a customer has won the National in a fast amount of calls (45 or less usually) who has left the club (usually to catch the bus!) before the results have come in!!!! Maybe something like that happened here. If your 6 numbers come up on the Lotto and you don't bother to ring the claim line straight-away, you could be running around thinking that you have won £5million when in actual fact you are splitting the win with 20 other players!!!!!
Anyway, to cut a long story short the article does not make it very clear what the story is here and reeks of a lazy journalist not being able to understand the situation and just capturing the bullet points. Also it smacks of an upset customer who is not pleased with there change in fortune and has told the manager of the bingo club that they are going to the press to humiliate the club!!!!! As long as this story does not end the same way as the story of the customer who shouted too late then I will be happy!!!!!

Posted by Brett at 14:08 | Add your comments [0] | Links |

Thursday, 1 January 2009

My review of 2008

hello folks and welcome to 2009!!!!!!!! Just made the effort to stumble out of bed and get on my blog before having to go to work and pretend to be happy and joyous for 8 hours! (how many of us have to do that today?!?!?!?)

So I am looking back over my blogs and stories over the last 12 months in the bingo world and the recurrent theme seems to be 'DOOM AND GLOOM' Lots of news at the start of the year about bingo clubs closing ,not to mention the constant pressure by the bingo association to abolish the unfair double taxation on the industry..........before ultimately failing to get the government to listen to the industries pleas. These two pieces of information tally, because without this tax relief on the bingo clubs, more and more clubs in the country had no other choice but to downsize or shut their doors. Factor in the smoking ban in England and the government changing the way in which fruit machines are taxed/classed and that is the reason that we are saying that there are now around 500 bingo halls in the country as opposed to 600 odd just a couple of years ago! The only ray of sunlight though in this saga is the recent announcement from Rank about getting a rebate of nearly £60million back from the government. If this decision is upheld then expect to see a swarm of other bingo operators taking the government to the cleaners!!!!!

One of the few good points however about the 2006 gaming act is the ability to retain stake on prize money, basically meaning rollover jackpots. This has meant that there has never been a better time to win a life-changing amount down the local club. Countless stories throughout the year about regular people winning huge sums always means good publicity for the industry. But (and there always seems to be a 'but'!) this increased prize potential has also meant more stories about prize money disputes between friends and families. Some disputes have even made it to the national press.....with the story about the brawling sisters fighting over £20k making it to one of the tabloids.

Speaking of money and disputes and the such-like there seemed to be a lot of articles about bingo robberies going on in the press in 2008..........some ranging from customers getting mugged for their winnings, to actual armed assaults on the clubs. However one of the saddest stories involve actual managers and staff being caught with there 'hands in the till'. In-club thievery is something that struck a chord with me and I dedicated one of my 2008 blogs to it to raise some light on the situation.

Obviously the credit crunch has been in the forefront of the nations minds as well and the bingo industry hasn't escaped from it either with plenty of stories about companies downsizing and consolidating there interests to keep the business tangible. However it is pleasing to know that the big companies were announcing a recent upturn in footfall in the bingo clubs towards the end of the year which could signal a revitalisation for the bingo halls in 2009. In my opinion a night out down the bingo is still a reasonably cheap night, especially when you compare it to a night at the cinema at £10 a ticket and £5 for popcorn or a trip to your local pub with drinks at £3 a pint!

One of the more personal pieces of bingo news for 2008 was the 'postponement' of the NBGA bingo caller of the year competition due to the 'climate in the industry'. Even though I am no longer eligible for the contest (due to being on the telly) I was stilled saddened by the news......hopefully all will be sorted this year and the competition comes back bigger and better.

Here are some more snippets from 2008, some large some small, that were my favorites for varying reasons:


The daily mails new bingo site: wowsers....the newspaper that likes to deride the whole gambling ethic, the paper that had more front page 'horror stories' about the initial 2006 gaming act proposals than any other....................opens it's own bingo site online!!!!!!!!!!!! Hypocrisy is a word that seems to have eluded these people! The good thing is though they seem to be centering there attentions on destroying the careers of overpaid TV celebrities at the moment so maybe bingo and the such-like will get a break from them this year!!!!!!

Nice stories of 'sharing' winners: we had a winner sharing £1.2million with her neighbour in March and another winner of over £1million sharing with there sister-in-law. No squabbles. no lawyers, no family break-ups. Just the way it should be.

Robbers set fire to themselves: I never like talking about armed robberies in the bingo (a few years ago this sort of thing was unheard of) but this story cheered me up as the robbers torched there getaway car.....with one of them getting set alight in the process!!!!!!!! HAHA!!!!

Gala link winners/losers: The sadist in me likes this story from December. Although the article mentions the winners I can't help but think about the 1/4 of the players who opted out of the game. Just one question.....................Why?!?!?!?!

Bingo callers take on the Eggheads.........and LOSE: It still grates with me that I slipped up on a question that I KNEW the answer to and that Judith guessed all of her answers correctly!!!!!!!!!!! Still it was a great day and one of my highlights of the year. It was funny as well because I was working on Gala TV the same night it was broadcast which meant that I was on TWO CHANNELS AT THE SAME TIME!!!!! That must have confused some people!!!!!!!

Ahh well.....I hope you all had a fantastic holiday period and are raring to go in 2009. Aim high and enjoy yourselves. See you soon!!!!!!!!

Posted by Brett at 14:23 | Add your comments [1] | Links |

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