News has reached us that yet another online bingo site will be opening its doors soon, with a report in industry magazine e-Gaming Review detailing the latest bingo newcomer will be Heart FM Bingo, a spin off from the immensely popular Heart FM radio station. As the online bingo world continues to grow in popularity, it seems that the lure of setting up another bingo site is too much for some other media companies to resist, and spin off bingo has become one of the major reasons for the huge number of online bingo sites that now exist. Add to that the recent re-launch of ITV Bingo, and it seems this trend isn’t one that seems to be slowing. But are spin-off bingo sites the real deal – or should online bingo sites be left to the experts?!
It’s a confusing issue in a way. The trend for media companies including newspapers, magazines and even shopping brands to launch bingo offshoots in some ways makes perfect business sense – as many of these properties already have a huge reach in terms of online bingo’s target market. If you take the example of The Sun, Sun Bingo has managed to become a bit of an online bingo institution in it’s own right because a lot of the Sun’s online audience will have more than a passing interest in the game of online bingo.
And it’s important to remember that these sites are not owned by complete bingo newbies – with many signing deals with major online bingo operators such as Playtech and Virtue Fusion to oversee their bingo site and in effect, make sure it competes with the gaming industry heavyweights such as Gala Bingo, Foxy Bingo, Wink Bingo and Tombola Bingo. Sure enough, the recently re-launched ITV Bingo is now being overseen by Cashcade – of Cheeky Bingo and Think Bingo fame – a move that, according to many industry experts, will hopefully mean that it will not have to suffer the same fate as it did before and fade into online bingo obscurity
But over the last few years, we have also seen an increasingly bizarre selection of bingo sites come, including Keith Chegwin’s very own Cheggers Bingo, Sharon Osbourne’s Sharon’s Bingo and the now sadly defunct Ann Summers Bingo. Although some of these sites are still operating and doing well, spin off bingo can often be a tricky path to navigate. Take Mirror Bingo, which has just reported that it has seen a slump in online bingo game figures as the competition in the online bingo world intensifies. Perhaps it is a coincidence, but this comes at a time when we have seen reports lamenting the less than speedy updating of promos on the site.
And perhaps this is the important issue to remember with spin off bingo. With plenty of competition in the online bingo world, any bingo site, regardless of whether it is a spin off from a bigger brand or one of it’s own creation must stay on top of the game in order to survive. That means offering players a little something different, whether it comes to game play, jackpots or free bingo or no deposit bingo promos. Tagging a bingo site alongside a recognisable name does not guarantee you success in the online bingo world, and any spin off bingo site will have to keep this in mind more than ever as 2010 sees the online bingo world come into the first stages of maturation. And so the moral to this tale?! Whilst you can never have too many spin off online bingo sites, operators are still going to have to go that extra mile to offer their players something different to avoid their spin off bingo site becoming little more than an online bingo afterthought.
