If you read the news then the chances are you will have come across the story of Kelly Nield, a 32 year old bingo player who attributes her £45,000 debt to a crippling gambling habit formed from seeing an online bingo advert. She goes on to say how the adverts target vulnerable people who believe they can make money from gambling but in this article, I want to tell you MY story because like Kelly my online bingo tale began from seeing an advert on television, unlike Kelly, I don’t have a £45,000 debt!
You can read the full story of my first dalliance with bingo at the Mecca Bingo hall in Hayes here. That was my first ever real experience of the game but a couple of years later I saw an advert on television for Think Bingo and they were offering £5 free. I signed up, claimed my free money and stayed as a player at the site for nearly two years.
In all the time that I played at the site (and in all the years I have continued to play) I have adhered to my motto “Never spend more than you can afford to lose”. Two years into my relationship with Think Bingo it sadly broke down, problems with communication in the relationship and I wanted to find a new partner. I went searching for other sites with no idea of how big the sea of other fish was! Reading reviews left me shaking my head because each was full of marketing hype rather than written by an actual player (things haven’t changed a lot since 2006!) It was then I decided to write my own reviews with no understanding of web design or forum functionality but luckily I had a friend to help me and ballsupbingo.co.uk was born.
At the point of starting the site I had no idea that I could make money from it, I just wanted to be able to tell others of certain pitfalls in playing online like wagering requirements etc. and what to watch out for. It was about a month into BallsUp that someone told me about affiliate marketing and how I could make money from advertising brands. Maintaining full editorial control, this is what I did and so my journey into making bingo pay me started. It’s 2015 now and although I still play bingo, it is still a passion of mine – it pays me. Not only do I write here at Playing Bingo but I’ve also had articles published in The Mirror, and have spoken at industry events as well as now being a co-owner of my own bingo brand, Tidy Bingo.
In summary, whilst I am sure it is a really horrible situation for Kelly to be in, bingo isn’t responsible, she is. For every one Kelly Nield, there will be at least 500 people who can enjoy a game of bingo without running up insurmountable debts. I’m proof that it doesn’t have to end the way it has for Kelly, it’s about the person rather than the product in my opinion.
