Has online casino bingo damaged the Bingo Clubs

Almost exactly a year ago we at onlinecasino.ie were reporting that the increasing popularity of online bingo at our online casinos had led to a surge in interest in playing bingo at a Bingo Club. This was based on a significant improvement in the results of the Mecca chain of bingo clubs owned of course by Rank, who were also reporting that the average age of their bingo club customers had reduced dramatically with under 35’s accounting for a third of their customer base. Unfortunately the optimism of a year ago appears to have been unfounded, and this year’s results show that the Mecca Bingo business has slumped by as much as 15%.The reason for this is unclear because we understand that bingo remains a very popular casino game at the online casinos, and if anything the number of online casino customers playing bingo is increasing. Some would argue that bingo fans no longer need to visit their local bingo club to play the game, but this ignores the long held view that the social aspect of playing bingo with friends was as important as the game itself. The same argument has also been used when discussing the effect that the rise in online casinos, with their significantly greater range of casino games might have on the fortunes of real casinos, but another look at the half year results recently reported by Rank shows a 33% rise in profits from their Grosvenor Casinos chain. Unless their casino customers have had a remarkable downturn in fortunes, one has to assume that more people are actually playing their casino games at a real casino in spite of the continuing growth of online casino gambling. At onlinecasino.ie we are of course firm supporters of online casinos and their ability to offer us far more choice of casino games than their land based rivals, but we also acknowledge that playing casino games in the company of other gamblers remains an exciting experience and we hope that real casinos and bingo clubs continue to prosper.