Chain: Walkers Bingo

Walkers Bingo was operated by Walker Leisure (UK) Limited, a company incorporated on 26 February 1964 — placing its origins right at the heart of the early-1960s boom in commercial bingo, following the Betting and Gaming Act 1960, which first allowed clubs like this to legally operate across Britain.

Like many operators of the era, Walker Leisure built much of its estate by taking over former cinemas as picture houses closed in the face of falling attendances and competition from television. Its clubs included a site in Stockport, in the former Wellington Picture House on Wellington Road, a 1921-built cinema that had passed through several earlier owners, including the Essoldo chain and Ladbrokes, before ending up under Walkers as its final bingo operator. Other known clubs in the Walker Leisure estate included Walker’s Bingo & Social Club on Green Lane, Derby, Selby Central Bingo Club on Back Park Street, Selby, and a site on the High Street in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, previously known as the Ritz Bingo Club and, before that, an Essoldo cinema. Additional clubs traded under the Walkers name in Coventry, Mansfield, and elsewhere, though it’s not confirmed whether every site sharing the Walkers Bingo name was part of the same corporate group.

Walker Leisure’s registered office was latterly based at Landmark St Peter’s Square in Manchester. The company remained active for close to six decades, before being formally dissolved on 26 August 2023, bringing an end to one of the longer-running independent bingo operators to emerge from bingo’s original 1960s boom

Listed below are clubs that closed whilst under the Walkers branding. Many of the clubs rebranded and will be featured elsewhere under the brand they closed under.