There’s been a lot of debate recently, particularly at the Online Bingo Summit in London last month, about the pros and cons of online bingo crossing over into the mobile territory. But it seems Mecca Bingo have gone some way to prove that it’s a valid move.

Mecca Bingo is owned by the Rank Group, with 97 bingo clubs around the country. According to Rank, visiting members dropped by 2% in the year to date up to the beginning of May.

But their online side, with meccabingo.com (as well as their other sports and gaming sites), recently saw a 17% increase after they launched a number of new online games for mobiles and the iPad.

Mecca Bingo’s venture into mobile technology includes apps for both the iPhone and Android phones. You can play many of their website games on your phone, including their new Britain’s Got Talent game.

Game play isn’t hugely different to the online website games. Once you’ve logged in, you can see which bingo rooms are available, how much your tickets will cost, and what the current prize for that room is.

Once you’re in a room, you’ll not feel out of place – the game is laid out similar to the website version, with your tickets on the left, and a prominent chat box on the right of your screen, complete with all the usual shortcuts to shout WTG and BRB, and drop some smilies in. Purchasing tickets is simple with plus and minus (+ and -) buttons to select how many you want.

In the Britain’s Got Talent game, you can win the same jackpot prizes as online website players, and you get a scratch card at the end of the game with the change to win up to £10.

Interested in trying out bingo on your mobile? Head over to meccabingo.com now for info and app download links.

We visit all the regular online bingo sites almost daily so it’s not often that a good deal or bargain passes us by!  And we were pleased to see last night that WhichBingo.co.uk has updated their collection of No Deposit Bingo sites with a feast of new places (and old favourites) offering free bingo.

Free Bingo? What’s the catch?

Okay, so you can’t always expect to get something for nothing. But these sites are actually giving new players free money (or ‘free game play’ would be a more appropriate term – since the money they give you has to be spent on their online bingo games). The catch is this – They want you to keep playing after using your free games and deposit more money. It’s a fair deal; in our experience, online bingo sites (just like land-based bingo halls) develop a staunch following and, although people may play at more than one site, they generally stick to the same sites time and time again.

So in order to win your favour, all the other sites you don’t play at have to do something to attract your attention – which is why they’re throwing free money and games at us all the time!

Where’s best to play?

A quick glance at WhichBingo’s No Deposit Bingo page tells us who’s topping the board for free money – they’re listed in order of highest amount. Bingo Liner and House of Bingo come out on top, offering £20 each in free play.

But looking a bit closer at the sites, we see that House of Bingo offers a 250% first-deposit bonus, while Bingo Liner gives a 300% first-deposit bonus. So, all in all, if you want to take your free play and run, it makes no difference beyond personal preference for game play and architecture. But if you’re looking for a new site to call home, look beyond the free sign-up offers and consider first-deposit bonuses and subsequent reload bonuses after that.

Where else?

Other sites with a free-money game-play offer include iBingo and Harry’s Bingo. For the full list, see WhichBingo.co.uk.

The Bingo Association is reaching out to Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in a call to cut bingo tax and help reinvigorate the market.

The gaming industry has a Gross Profit Tax of 15%, but physical bingo clubs across the UK pay 5% extra at 20% GPT. In an industry that’s long been struggling to turn  a profit, paying an extra 5% tax can really hurt.

But Chief Executive of the Bingo Association, Paul Talboys, says that to reduce taxes on bingo clubs will actually invigorate the industry and create extra revenue in tax for Number 11 Downing Street – with existing clubs finally pulling in more profit, newer clubs will open, generating more revenue and therefore more money in tax for Osborne.

It stands to reason that the less tax an individual club pays, the more clubs there’ll be to pay it.

But will we see a change for the better in Osborne’s Budget on 21st March? MPs from all side are backing the move and a policy change is definitely long overdue. All we can do now is wait.

Bingo Blitz is the most popular bingo games on Facebook.

In fact, it is one of the top 10 most played of ANY game on Facebook, and that is some achievement considering it is competing with the likes of FarmVille and CityVille. It has easily over a million players per day.

Now the company behind those other games mentioned, Zynga,  has this week launched a bingo game on Facebook to get a slice of the action. Nothing wrong with that, but Zynga Bingo is more than just a passing resemblance to Bingo Blitz, it is almost feature-for-feature a direct copy.

Bingo Blitz originally took the traditional game of bingo and updated it for the Facebook generation with power ups, collections and unlockable rooms and content. This unique blend of features made Bingo Blitz stand out, but now according to the makers of Bingo Blitz, Buffalo Studios, Zynga Bingo has simply copied their entire game and re-packaged it as their own.

In a cheeky broadside to Zynga, Buffalo Studios have produced this infographic highlighting the similarities between the two games.

We’re with Buffalo Studios on this one, but we’re unsure if there is anything Buffalo Studios can actually do about it. Will we see a court case coming up between the two? It would be very interesting to see what happens next with this one.

Source: http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/29/buffalo-studios-blasts-zynga-for-copying-bingo-blitz-social-game/

One of the newest bingo sites to hit the net is Nutty Bingo, and they’ve decided to do something a bit different when it comes to new player offers.

Not only do you get £5 free no deposit to try the site. If you like it and make a first deposit of £20, they’ll send you 4 women’s magazines, such as Star, New and OK!

Nutty Bingo is powered by Dragonfish, so if you are a seasoned bingo player you will find the games easy to master. There are 90 ball and 75 ball bingo games, as well as a wide array of slots, instants and table games to play.

Get your £5 free no deposit at Nutty Bingo.

Players at Boyle Bingo can get a special Back to School treat if they play bingo between 1st – 4th September.

By using the bonus code ‘BACK2SCHOOLGBP’ players may receive up to 150% cashback on any losses they have made in that time, depending on their loyalty status.

Long term players on the top level Diamond Level will get the whole 150%, but even newbies on the Bronze Level still get a generous 110% cashback.

Boyle Bingo also want players to interact with them on their blog, so by simply a comment or uploading a picture to their blog you could earn up to £25 in bonus funds to keep you going.

Leading bingo site tombola has unveiled a completely new selection of ad break indents that promote its sponsorship of well known ongoing drama Emmerdale. Players at tombola bingo were invited to apply if they wanted to take part in shooting a few months ago. The outcome was 25 normal, everyday online bingo players being selected from scores of applications to be a part of this third sequence of marketing campaign films that started just recently.

The lucky Tombola players picked to take part travelled to the Cornish Riviera for filming and took part in activities from building sandcastles to quad biking, from making Cornish Pasties to abseiling and fishing. All the activities were filmed like a fly on the wall documentary.

The films appear at the opening and end of Emmerdale and at the start and ending of each advertisement break around the soap as well. The new ads come just months after Tombola launched an exciting new game called Bingo Roulette, where players can win some amazing prizes. It’s unclear whether this will feature in the TV campaign.

Dawn-Elizabeth Howe, Head of Marketing at Tombola, says: “These ads have the same creative format as the previous ads on the Emmerdale show. We had great feedback as the warmth and fun the players had together comes across brilliantly in the final bumpers and it really reflects what tombola is all about. So when we decided to produce new ads we knew we wanted to repeat much of the existing look and feel.”

Filming the ads brought together players from all over the UK and with considerably different life-styles. There’s mum of three kids Karen Taylor of Wakefield in addition to Co. Director Christine Di Ciacca from Retford, Notts, to name just two, but by the end of shooting all were good friends and they are planning a reunion in the not too distant future.

An online bingo site has gone live with a fantastic new design which gives their players what they asked for and makes the website much easier to use.

Following far reaching customer research to find out exactly what bingo fans want from their bingo site and looking closely at the site design and user-bility, the new Meccabingo.com design has been built with the key goal of making Meccabingo.com the site bingo players call home.

Mecca Bingo’s clear & colourful new site offers lots of new and easy to follow areas, such as the live up-to-date online bingo guide that launches players’ favourite bingo games, such as 1p bingo, straight from the homepage at the click of the mouse.

“With 103 Mecca Bingo Clubs across the UK and a large online following, we have a huge customer base who wants the same experience whether they’re playing in one of our Clubs or online. This is why it has been important for us to bring the site design in line with our Clubs and provide consistency and a bingo experience that they are familiar with.”

Quote from the Gaming Director at Mecca.

- New to Mecca Bingo? Claim your free bonus here.

Top bingo sites are offering huge welcome bonuses and bingo jackpots to attract new players to their sites. This is quite natural, especially because there are over 300 bingo sites competing for larger market share today. As the competition gets stiffer, you will see larger bingo bonuses being offered to new users. In this part, we are going to briefly discuss about welcome bonuses and how we can benefit from them.

Welcome bonuses are actually bonuses offered to new players signing up with a bingo site. It can be a no-deposit bingo bonus or a deposit-match bonus, or even both. No-deposit bonus can be claimed right away after you created an account with the site, allowing you to start playing online bingo in no time. However, the amount is relatively small. Deposit-match bonus, on the other hand, is offered once you make your initial deposit. The bingo site will give you certain amount offered and you can start playing bingo with more money in your online bingo bankroll.

No matter which welcome bonus offer you are claiming, make sure you read the terms and conditions perfectly before you start. There will be requirements you have to meet in order to be able to use the bonus money to play bingo. There are even more requirements to meet if you want to withdraw winnings you get from playing with the bonus money. Simply read the requirements carefully and you will have no trouble at all playing online bingo with the bonus money as well as withdrawing the winnings you get in the process.

2010 has been a bumper year for bingo as almost 50 new bingo sites have launched onto the market. The surge in new sites may be somewhat surprising given the delicate condition of the British economy.

New bingo sites in 2010 include Bingo Cove and Bingo Hollywood. Some sites have launched and then shut down, however, with Amuso being the most high-profile site to open and close.

Of course, there’s still 2 months of 2010 left so there’s plenty of time for even more new bingo sites to launch.

Which has been your favourite new bingo site in 2010 so far?