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The Million Pound Bingo Prize Con - Old News Archive

Posted On: Wednesday, 18 October, 2006

During the recent spate of reviews I did of online bingo sites, one thing I saw on a few of the sites was a lot of promotion for the big twice weekly £1,000,000 Bingo games. It's a great prize and it's certainly great marketing.

It caught my attention with big flashy adverts all over the shop, but I wonder how many people have actually looked into the small print of this prize? Not a lot I bet, because if they did - a lot of them would be a touch disappointed at the terms of this prize. Firstly, it's pretty hard to win, but not impossible. Should you be lucky enough to win the prize, you'll be shocked to hear you won't get a million, at least, not straight away.

Now, as part of my review process, I have a good dig around in the small print of sites. I almost fell off my chair laughing when I spotted that this massive prize is paid out over 30 years. That's right, 30 years, 30 annual installments of £33,333. Once the laughter subsided I was shocked and appalled - I'll go into why in a moment. First though, for those of you Bingo players who avoid the small print, here's the terms from a couple of sites.

£1,000,000 Bingo prize small print 1

And on another site we get a break down of the other prizes and their payment terms:

£1,000,000 Bingo prize small print 1

Now, why is this so bad? £33,333 a year isn't to be sniffed at, right? Well no, but the thing is, we're lured into this game on the premise of a million, and what that means to us right now in the current economic climate. If certain future economic situations came to pass, in ten years time £33,333 might be next to nothing. It might buy you a loaf of bread! So, for the following 20 years you get pocket change.

That's one fanciful scenario, but here's another. What if you die in ten years? You don't get your million, simple fact. What's more, if you win this, you can forget about you and your partner retiring and living on this annual money. The average salary in the UK is around £22,060, so for the pair of you, things could be comfortable, but certainly not luxurious. If it was a lump sum million, you could investest some striaght away, and gain interest on the total. At £33,333 a year you wouldn't have much left over to play with once your normal living costs were taken in to account.

A number of sites and networks are tied into this £1,000,000 prize - it undoubtedly causes a great buzz and rush of players. In fact, in my last post I mentioned that the big prize was part of what won the competition for Online Bingo of the Year. As of yet, I've not seen one of the sites featuring the big prize games mention the smallprint in some shape or form on any of the big splash adverts they have for the game.

Quite frankly, it's a con. Can you imagine Chris Tarrant on who wants to be a millionaire awarding the top prize to a contestant, then telling them they only get a thirtieth, once a year for thirty years? There'd be an uproar. Come on online bingo people, you need to be upfront about this and make your lifeblood, the customers, aware of this fact in some way more than burying this information in the small print.

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