Over the last few years Irish bookmakers Paddy Power have come under fire from certain groups over the suitability of some of their adverts which have been showing on the small screen. Love them or loathe them, they are certainly getting everyone talking, laughing or even gasping in shock. But they are getting the message across! The same can now be said about Paddy Power Bingo and their online bingo promotions which are now having the same effect of certain people.

Never one to walk away from controversy, Paddy Power Bingo, this weekend’s promotion – Paddy’s Passion Wagon – is the place where Saturday players can get naughty while having some bingo fun. Just head to the Diamond Room every Saturday from 9pm where you can win loads of BBS but most of all it promises to be a great laugh. As they say at Paddy Power -be there, be frisky, and be naughty.

If however you find that that is not the room for you, then why not try their Gold and Sapphire Rooms where this Sunday the 29th of August you can win a guaranteed £14,000. That equates to four £1,000 guaranteed jackpots every hour on the hour from 8 pm to 11pm (inclusive) and then a massive £10,000 jackpot game at 10.30pm.

Posh bingo do it, Foxy and Wink Bingo started doing it, now not to be outdone new boys on the block – Costa Bingo – have started doing it… TV advertising can make or break a company so they have to get it right. Let’s be honest, lately the advertising coming from the online bingo companies has been amongst the funniest on the small screen whether it be Weimaraner dog doing an Irish jig to a giant fox or bingo balls running down the street we have to laugh.

Costa Bingo new advert will be running during high viewed programs such as Coronation Street, This Morning, Jerry Springer and Casualty and will show ‘Sunny’ the company’s main character talking about all the free bingo that Costa are famous for, the whole thing is shot over a Mediterranean beach.

Costa Bingo came online on June 2009 and has went from strength to strength ever since, they now have 15 chat rooms and you can play over 40 instant games. Famous for their free bingo Costa now claim to have over 3,500 regular players which has boosted their free bingo jackpot to an amazing £3000 every week.

Its good to see some celebrities getting in on the act, that is getting involved in bingo for a good cause and not just lining their pockets. The latest was Mickey Hughes, the runner up at Big Brother 9 (OK, fine, we are stretching the word ‘celebrity’ to its very max), he was calling the numbers at the local college in Kilwinning Ayrshire for the North Ayrshire Cancer Care Foundation.

Although blind, due to being born with Sticklers Syndrome, Micky done a grand job of calling the

bingo numbers. Mickey, is the latest in a long list of celebrities to be seen calling numbers at bingo. Gala have managed to persuade Julie Pearson to be the new caller on there online game, Julie (Jo Steadmen in the popular soap Emmerdale) is said to be very excited about her new role. Saying this a job she can add to her lists of talents.

Not only are celebrities bingo calling they are also using their local halls as nights out, last month Most Haunted presenter Yvette Fielding held her hen party at her local Mecca bingo hall in Crewe. In other news the Bingo Association have appointed their new Chairman Mr Brian Mattingley, a former financial Director at Gala, Mr Mattingley has had a very successful career in the bingo industry, although

much rests on his head as the bingo industry is heading into uncertain times with smoking bans and tax increases. We will have to wait and see what Mr Mattingley can do to stop the closures of many bingo halls.

Bruno, the new film by star Sacha Baron Cohen is already getting ready to fight a lawsuit even before the film is released on July. It is reported the Baron Cohen will play a flamboyant gay Austrian fashionistaite in the latest of his controversial films. The trouble happened at a charity bingo game, where the organisers were told he was a celebrity, Mrs Richelle Olson, who is the Executive Director of Desert Valley Charities says, “Bruno arrived dressed extremely offensive with sexually revealing clothes”. Once on the stage his language was disgusting, vulgar and offensive to many of the elderly bingo players.

Mrs Olson went to the stage to try and stop the actor, Cohen then “Offensively touched, pushed and battered” Mrs Olson as they fought for the microphone, it is reported that the film crew also came on the stage to help Cohen, this lasted for about 5 minutes one onlooker says. Mrs Olson staggered off the stage where she fell hitting her head, she had sustained two bleeds to her brain, she is now suing Cohen and NBC Universal for an excess of $25,000 as she claims she has to walk with the use of a stick or a wheelchair.

We will be following this case very carefully.

In recent years the bingo community must think that the government have something against them. Firstly the smoking ban was introduced in 2007, this act stopped 8% of the total people playing bingo in the traditional halls. This figure might not seem like a great amount, but if you think that more people visit bingo halls than attend Premier Football matches each week, it starts to mount up.

Normally bingo halls have mini games which can only be played at the interval, these are called ‘table top bingo’ now these games generate massive amounts of money, sometimes as much as 45% of the total money taken from the club.

Now, with the No Smoking ban the ‘puffers’ need their nicotine craving, so they have to go out at the interval, in some bingo halls it is estimated that 40% of smokers leave for a smoke, missing some of the mini games, now this money coupled with the 8% in ticket sales, now runs into millions of pounds of lost revenue.

On 23rd of April the Chancellor did it again to the bingo community, in his budget he increased the gross profit tax on bingo from 15pc to 22pc saying this will bring in an extra £35million
to the Exchequer. To the bingo organisations this will cost them nearly £9million per year.

They are disappointed with the Chancellor as he made no indication that he was going to make this change. Gala bingo are asking people to sign a petition at their local halls and these are to be handed into the local Councillor. It will be interesting to see how many signatures are handed into the Government?

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.

Sunday night (Feb 22nd) is Oscar night when celeb stardom goes stellar and the world’s attention switches to a strip of red carpet and a handful of beautiful and creative individuals who have been selected to receive the prestigious award of an Oscar. Paddy Power Bingo are also putting on a bit of ‘bling’ to help you celebrate the Oscars in pure diva style.

The ‘New VIP Platinum Room’ from Paddy Power Bingo is between 6 – 7pm and will be packed to the brim with big prizes waiting to be won. Paddy Power Bingo have got 2 x £400 up for grabs, as well as 3 x £200 prizes and tons of Jumping Jackpot Games!

Not content with just that Paddy Power Bingo we will be giving you an amazing 10% Loss-Back offer on Celebrity Top Trumps. That means that if you lose between £5 and £25- Paddy Power Bingo will pay back 10% of your total loss, as a special Oscars Bingo night treat.

A new bingo site has been launched, Cheeky Bingo, which will offer free bingo from 8am until midnight seven days a week. The site is the latest realease from Cashcade who also run the successful Foxy Bingo, Think Bingo and Bingo Scotland. Cheeky Bingo offer players FREE 75 ball & 90 ball games with random prizes. The site also features real money games with progressive jackpots on offer.

Cheeky Bingo is also being backed by a TV advertising campaign, which will air from February 9th and is heavily promoting the play for free, win for real message. Registration on Cheeky Bingo is free. Cheeky Bingo are also offering a 200% cash match on all new players first deposit. That means for £10 you place in your bank you get £30 in return, now that is anything but cheeky.

80 years ago, a travelling salesman named Edwin S. Lowe, settled down to play a game of ‘Beano’ at a local fair in New York. Beano, was a popular game at country fairs, the rules of the game were simple : a dealer (similar to a card dealer) would select numbered discs from a box and players would mark their cards with beans and sometimes corn, hence the name ‘Beano’. But this time, the player who won the game, in his excitement, yelled, ‘Bingo‘ instead of ‘Beano’ which was overheard by Mr Edwin S. Lowe and thus the idea to rename the game to ‘Bingo’ was borne!

Mr Edwin S. Lowe was so determined to make his version of the ‘beano’ game even more popular he hired the services of a Mathematician, named Carl Leffler, to increase the number of combinations on his newly named ‘bingo cards’.

4 years later and Mr Edwin S. Lowe’s game of Bingo was so popular that it had spread over the full of North America. The game of beano quietly filtered into the background. Nowadays, Bingo is a worldwide phenomenon, that we all know and love. Happy Birthday Bingo!

The Sun Bingo has delivered a cracking free bingo offer with their ‘Free Holidays Competition‘ running all this week. To qualify for one the holidays, simply play ‘What Is This?’ Quickie Games between the hours of 9:50 am and 9:50 pm and if your the ninth person to guess what is being revealed you’ll win a FREE holiday.

The Sun are famous for their ‘£9.50′ holidays in their daily newspaper, where they offer their readers a chance to collect tokens each day to be able to take a holiday at just £9.50 per person. Now they are offering this unique offer to their free bingo playing punters.

Play one of our qualifying ‘What Is This?’ Quickie Games at 9:50am or 9:50pm, and if you’re the 9th person to guess what’s being revealed you’ll win one of The Sun’s £9.50 Holidays – for FREE!

Qualifying ‘What Is This?’ games take place in the following Sun Bingo chat rooms:

* Monday January 19th : Sherbet
* Tuesday January 20th : Wags
* Wednesday January 21st : 70’s
* Thursday January 22nd : Champagne
* Friday January 23rd : Paris