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Best Online Bingo Sites 2008? - Old News Archive

Posted On: Thursday, 08 January, 2009

Firstly, belated Happy New Year to all Playing Bingo readers out there. Been as it's January, it must be time for my annual rant about Which Bingo's Online Bingo Awards. It's ironic that they've dubbed themselves the 'Online Bingo Oscars' as frankly the awards are as crooked and pointless as the trumped up Hollywood centric movie awards. You'll be seeing posts all over the Bingo-blogosphere about the awards trumpeting and reporting on the result with little analysis or question.

Well not here, where personally I think the whole event needs a complete overhaul if the results are going to be in the slightest bit relevant or illuminating. The awards are decided by people voting on the sites of their choice. A public vote can be a good thing, but in the case of Bingo sites, it comes down to who can mobilise the most of their members to vote for themselves, when often they may not have any idea about the wider field. I would rather see a panel of regular online bingo players and industry experts convene to decide a short list of sites and build the top sites based on merit rather than have it skewed by sites getting their players to vote.

The awards should be based around a number of checkable and measurable criteria to be of any import and relevance to online players. Things like payout levels, transparency of terms and conditions, minimum payout levels, player levels, chat friendliness and more should be considered. Simply having members vote for their site is too simplistic. If I had the time I would try and do something like this myself, but at present it's not going to happen. That said it would be good to see staff at Which Bingo step up to the mark and change the way the annual awards are organised. It's a recognised brand and as such it would have the authority to award the sites in the manner I've prescribed rather than just by vote.

I also don't think it helps the industry to cover the awards in such depth and give them such prominence. Some of the sites in the list are questionable to say the least, and fail in many of their elements of customer care and reasonable terms and conditions for players. A number of them will be proudly displaying their Which Bingo award winner status, giving the impression to new players that the site is worthy of their money and time, when in many cases that's not necessarily the case.

So let's look at the results and see why my frustration is so piqued. Here's some selected highlights from the list, and comments on why I don't think they're worthy of being ranked so highly. First up, the best site awards:

So that's the 'Best' sites of 2008... Hmmm. Check out the full list here. After that debacle, there's unfortunately more of the same in the Best Newcomers category too. Several sites I'd encourage people to avoid crop up in the list, and the more worthy entries are further down the list than they deserve to be. For my money either Wink Bingo or Tombola would be in first place in the newcomers category (although I'd question if Tombola was a new site or not given events the last year). There are a number of networked skins in there as well that have done little more than add their banner to a site and offer nothing of note or worth to the field. Really poor.

So there we go - if you're new to Bingo and see this list, take it with an EEC salt mountain sized pinch of salt. No doubt I'll be back here the same time next year with an equally dispirited report on the 2009 Bingo Awards. Don't blame me if I just cut and paste this year's piece again.

3 Comments

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Scott said...

Hi diobach,
Don't mean to post about it here or look like we're spamming, but the Bingoport Players Choice Awards for 2008 have been voted on by our community and are 100% decided by the players. We're having an award ceremony at CAP London and would love to have you come along if you're available?
Details of the awards are at our site.

We have attempted to make our awards as fair as possible.

Cheers!

Mary J said...

Hello Dio

Firstly let me say I like reading your site. Your stories and news are normally very good.

Howevre I have to take up some points on your story about the awards. It seems to me that you are comaplining simply because you dont agree with the winners. I actually play at Bingo Liner and just becaiuse we are a small site doesnt mean we cant vote for an award. You say that "online bingo players and industry experts convene to decide a short list of sites". And who would these people be? You? Who are you, or indeed any other "industry experts" to tell me who I can and cant vote for? I guess the short list would just be made up of those sites that pay to advertise on your site - surpirse, suprise. But then your agument gets silly - you say "A public vote can be a good thing, but in the case of Bingo sites, it comes down to who can mobilise the most of their members to vote for themselves". Surely sites on your 'chosen' short list would then "mobilise the most of their members to vote for themselves". Well Derrrr - you get to the same problem?????? Are sites then to be told that they cant tell their players to vote for them? Just becuase you dont like who won doesnt mean its not a valid vote. We luv Bingo Liner and your comments just go to prove why we should be able to vote, not just stick to what you want, on your advertiser short list.
There's lots of good sites out there like yours, I read lots of them and I dont think you should be picking on whichbingo.
Sorry for the moan but I do think your site is normally good. Just this point I think you have it wrong on this vote. The vote was done. The results are in. Just cos you dont agree, dont moan.

Dio Bach said...

Hi Mary, thanks for your comments, and I appreciate your concerns, but I do think you're missing the point (or I didn't make it very well!) If you've never played Bingo before, and sign up at a site, then that's all you know, you have no overview of the field and the competition to make the decision that the site you're at is the best one.

In a public vote, lets say an election, all parties try to persuade you who's best and lay out their manifestos. You then decide which of them is the best and vote on that one. This is the opposite of having a site tell you to vote for it as their is no comparison and fair decision. That's my point.

I play at Bingo Liner myself occasionally, but I also play at a lot of other sites as well as following their promotions, player numbers and the like. Bingo Liner doesn't offer anything special or innovative IMO to rank it in such a high position.

Also, as a point of note, not a single Bingo site pays to advertise at this site. The adverts on here are all chosen by me on an affiliate level, so no one can turn around and influence my opinions by threatening to remove their sponsorship or the like.

All adverts are placed by me on a couple of criteria - 1. I've actually tried the site and are happy with its service and 2. I'd be happy to send my Nan their to try them out and not worry about her getting caught out. I actually turn away a lot of advertisers who want to buy top exposure on my site (unlike many others out there) as I don't like the position it would put my site in, giving inferior Bingo sites authority by promoting them, just for the sake of the money.

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