The Bingo Community in Online Bingo Sites

In the UK, the offline bingo community is an important supporter of online bingo sites. Major bingo sites like Tombola and Mecca Bingo have made big offline marketing efforts including free bingo games with big (£100,000) jackpot prizes and tie-ins with popular print magazines like TV Choice, Heat, That's Life, and Now. Inside the magazines were cards containing unique codes printed on the bingo leaflet in the magazine. In such offline promotions, bingo players are allowed to play one free online bingo game during the promotion period. The jackpots are shared among a limited number of people, giving players a big incentive to buy a magazine and play online.

Tombola has a selection of easy games alongside regular bingo games for its members, and it also preserves the social aspect of the game with 42 chat rooms and 90 moderators. On their site, £3,000,000 per week is won in cash prizes every week.

The folks at Mecca Bingo have been around for years. Well before the internet was even thought of Mecca had a presence in most UK towns with their large bingo halls that were packed nearly every day. With the advent of online gambling, Mecca Bingo translated their highly successful offline business into an online bingo business in grand style. Owned and run by Rank, a British company, Mecca Bingo is registered in Alderney in the Channel Islands. Because of Mecca Bingo's reputation in offline bingo, they have the most players online and the biggest jackpots. They, too have chat rooms for socializing.

Offline bingo enthusiasts have adopted online bingo in large numbers. With the indoor smoking ban in effect, many smokers are taking their lust for bingo online. Revenues from online bingo are expected to rise by at least 20% to £784 million in 2009 and £964 million in 2010.