Chain: Jasmine Bingo

Jasmine Bingo was formed in 1991 to acquire eight bingo clubs from Rank, following Rank’s takeover of Mecca, meaning the Jasmine clubs were most likely former Mecca sites rebranded under the new name. The company was owned by Leisure Workshop, whose chief executive and ultimate shareholder was Leslie Hunt, a former Rank director.

Confirmed Jasmine clubs included venues in Tottenham (443 High Road), Maida Vale (140 Maida Vale), Hemel Hempstead (Marlowes), King’s Cross, and Lewisham, in the former Capitol Cinema. As with most UK bingo operators, several of these occupied older cinema buildings with histories stretching back decades before Jasmine’s ownership. The Maida Vale site, for instance, first opened as the Picture Palace in 1913, while the Hemel Hempstead club had originally opened as an Odeon in 1961, with its foundation stone laid by Lauren Bacall, before splitting its time between film and bingo from 1974.

In 1996, three of the eight Jasmine clubs were sold to Zetters for £600,000, as the family-run pools company moved to re-enter the bingo business after an eight-year absence. Zetters had previously demerged its own 30-club bingo chain in 1987, which was then bought by Bass a year later, so this deal marked a fresh entry into an industry Zetters knew well. As part of the transaction, Leslie Hunt joined the Zetters board as deputy chief executive, becoming chief executive that April, while Jasmine’s non-executive chairman, Robert Upsdell, also joined Zetters as a non-executive director. Zetters funded the deal partly through a share issue that left Jasmine holding 7% of the enlarged company, while also paying £5.9 million to Leisure Workshop to settle inter-company debts owed by Jasmine.

It’s not confirmed which three of Jasmine’s eight original clubs passed to Zetters in this deal, or what happened to the remaining five, so there may be a further chapter to this story involving other buyers or continued independent trading under the Jasmine name into the late 1990s.