“Number 17 – dancing queen, 26 – pick and mix, 42 – Winnie the Pooh”. Light-hearted bingo calls such as these have formed the soundtrack of bingo halls in the United Kingdom for decades. However, the UK’s bingo industry is no joke. Rather, the
in the 2022/23 fiscal year totaled nearly 600 billion British pounds. Meanwhile, the GGY for online bingo totaled around 170 million British pounds.
How has the UK’s bingo industry fared since the coronavirus pandemic?
In no uncertain terms, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic wreaked havoc on the UK’s bingo industry. While other gambling sectors in the UK also suffered as a result of the pandemic, the bingo industry’s reliance on in-person rather than online participation meant it was hit particularly hard. In comparison, more than 75 percent of the GGY from the British casino sector came from online gambling both before and after the pandemic. However, the in-person bingo industry has shown some resilience, with the
number of bingo establishments in Great Britain growing to 650 in the 2023 fiscal year after having fallen to 589 in 2021. In fact, bingo halls were the only category of gambling establishment to have grown in number since 2016; in contrast, the number of betting shops has gone from close to 9,000 to under 6,000 in the same period.
How many people play bingo in the UK?
When surveyed in 2024, it was found that five percent of
adults in Great Britain participated in bingo. Despite in-person bingo being the financial lifeblood of the industry, consumer habits indicate that
online bingo is certainly on the rise, with 45 percent of bingo players saying they played solely online in January 2023. At the forefront of the UK’s online bingo industry is a handful of platforms, such as Tombola, Gala, and Mecca, all of which ranked as the three
most popular online bingo platforms among British players as of October 2023.
What is the future of the UK’s bingo industry?
Although the UK’s bingo industry has shown an ability to bounce back from the devastating effects of the pandemic, the subsequent cost of living crisis has posed another problem. During a survey held in January 2023, 45 percent of UK bingo players said that they had
spent less money on playing bingo than in October 2021. Meanwhile, only 13 percent said they had spent more money playing bingo in the same period. Furthermore, 24 percent of UK bingo players said that they
set a spending limit before playing. While the uptake in GGY for the industry between 2021 and 2023 suggests a higher participation rate to make up for the lower levels of spending, the future of bingo in the UK will be shaped by the sector’s ability to find new ways of drawing in a wider customer base.
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