Budget Bingo

Bingo is at the heart of many communities, and with more than half closing in the last 20 years the Government were worried that we could loose our bingo halls. The smoking ban and resent economic difficulties were to blame but a recent advertising campaign has been successful and numbers are slowly coming back. Nearly 3 million UK punters regularly venture out to play bingo at their favourite bingo hall.

Wednesday (22nd April) saw the latest budget by the Chancellor Alistair Darling, was this good for the bingo industry? Bingo organisers have been lobbying to scrap the VAT on participation fees for playing bingo for years. This eventually happened in this budget, however, what did this mean to the industry?

Well the phrase ‘give with one hand- take with another’ springs to mind. The Chancellor then went on to raise the bingo duty from 15% to 22%. Some organisations are claiming to be down by as much as £9million in running costs with this percentage rise, share prices dropped over 8% as the news filtered through. The government are currently looking at the gaming machines, moving the taxation onto a gross profits basis. The bingo association are waiting for the outcome of this meeting.