Chain: Crown Bingo

Crown Bingo is operated by Peter Arnett Leisure, founded by Peter Arnett, who opened the company’s first club in Gosport, Hampshire, in 1968. The business is now run by his two sons, Peter and Nick. Crown Bingo is a small independent chain with three clubs, based in Bognor Regis, Cosham, and Leigh Park (Havant), positioning itself as a community-focused operator with more than 50 years in the bingo industry.

Individually, the clubs carry some interesting history of their own. The Bognor Regis venue began life as the Odeon Cinema, opening in 1934 with seating for just over a thousand patrons under Oscar Deutsch’s Odeon Theatres chain, featuring Art Deco styling including concealed trough lighting. The cinema traded until 1974, briefly became the Regal Cinema, then Regal Bingo, before Crown Bingo took over the site in 1987.

Crown’s clubs share the chain’s emphasis on community spirit, positioning each venue as a local hub offering traditional bingo alongside food and drink, aimed at building loyal, long-standing custom rather than competing directly with the scale of the national chains.

It’s worth noting that “Crown Bingo” has also historically been used as a name by at least one separate, unrelated operator — a South Shields club that reopened as the Crown Bingo Club in 1961 traded under the Hearns family of bingo clubs, a different lineage to the Bognor Regis, Cosham, and Leigh Park chain