Anita's Bingo Blog

It’s really funny how things seem to happen in a pattern. Yesterday we published an article about what makes Nutty Bingo stand out from the crowd and last night when I do my shopping I am presented with yest another way that they are going the extra mile.

Lot’s of firms are now using the back of supermarket receipts to advertise themselves. It may be local restaurants or local tradesmen. But the beauty of this type of advertising is that is usually features some kind of special offer and the amount of people it reaches nationwide.

The Nutty Bingo ad on the back of my Morrison’s Supermarket receipt stood out and was impossible to ignore. Of course, I recognised the colourscheme straight away from the WhichBingo directory and from having played at the site, but anyone not familiar with Nutty Bingo would be unlikely to forget that they had seen the ad thanks to the distinctive purple based colour scheme and the bingo ball shaped logo with different sized eyes!

The ad featured a £5 free offer for new members using bonus code SHOP when they register. Now I hold no responsibility if this code doesn’t work as I haven’t verified it through official channels. However, if you haven’t tried Nutty Bingo yet, it’s worth giving it a go for a possible free £5 no deposit bingo bonus to explore this new bingo site.

Let me know if it works and what you think of Nutty Bingo and its efforts to become a household name.

WhichBingoAnita

Jackpotjoy are turning my day upside down today, but one thing’s for certain – their aim was to cheer people up on a day that research has said is one of the most depressing in the calendar and in my case that has certainly worked and I haven’t even won anything – yet!

Barbara Windsor is in the Jackpotjoy office in her role as their Queen of Bingo and she has thousands of pounds to give away. She is making calls to online bingo players and there is lots going on on the Jackpotjoy Facebook page too involving giving money away and everyone is getting really into it.

Jackpotjoy Bingo are putting some of the calls on Facebook. The first one found a very happy lady who was told she had won £100. Barbara asked where she was – turned out to be Tenerife!! You would have thought that would have been a very short call, paying to call a mobile abroad, but no – the conversation lasted two and a half minutes. The call will nearly have cost the same again as the prize money.

This afternoon I got a call!! Yes, I got all giddy. The ‘phone rang. I didn’t know the number. I took a deep breath, answered with a loud ‘Oi, Oi, Oi’ and was met by silence. I waited a few seconds then a male voice said ‘This is Neil, from Policy Expert – can I talk to you about the quote you obtained recently?’

I fell about. I couldn’t speak – not to mention the guys in the office having a good laugh at my expense. That poor man. Sorry Neil, we weren’t laughing at you – Jackpotjoy has got a lot to answer for today.

There are going to be a lot of happy people around the country (and in Tenerife) today, with each call or Facebook prize being worth lots of lovely cash and I wonder how many will have done what I did? Let me know if you got yourself into a scrape by taking part in this promo – or if you really got a call.

WhichBingoAnita

It started on 26th December and at that point 20th January 2012 seemed a long way off, but on 21st January William Hill Bingo will reveal the winner of their Live For Free in 2012 prize draw.

This drew me in and I have tried to spend some time at William Hill Bingo this month as every week for a year they will prersent the lucky winner with a £475 cash payment. That will do nicely thank you! There were daily prizes on offer too and just for info, the last day’s prize is the one many people have been waiting for and is the ubiquitous and ‘no contest is complete without it’ iPad2.

However, I have just checked and I am not sure that my 47 prize draw entries will really cut the mustard, do you? Some of you will have been playing at William Hill Bingo day and night all month and have hundreds of entries, if not thousands. Let me know how many you have and what I am up against! They do say however it only takes one to win.

That amount of cash would certainly change my life and I am sure it is the same for many bingo players out there, so William Hill have done it again and hit the nail on the head as to what appeals to the wider market. It’s even better that there was no other action required than actually playing at the site.

William Hill Bingo won the WhichBingo promotion of the year for 2011 with its Car a Day offer, but this ‘Live Free’ offer could be an early entry to the shortlist for 2012 don’t you think?

If this is how they are starting the year I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year brings. Wish me luck for draw day!

WhichBingoAnita

So, finally there is an online bingo site that taps into the success of Big Brother. I can’t understand why a Big Brother Bingo has only just launched given that the programme was a the height of its success around the mid noughties. However, aside from the fact that the biggest days of Big Brother itself are behind them, that doesn’t mean that the online bingo site that bears its name is past its sell by date.

On the contrary. All new Big Brother Bingo takes the theme of the show, being the house, tasks, diary room, evictions, fame and fortune and just incorporates them into a traditional bingo site that is fun and easy to play.

It has avoided tapping directly into the show with actual Big Brother logos or pictures or actual characters that the show has created. Big Brother Bingo stands alone and is all the better for it. Joy of Bingo have done a sterling job and taken the basic format of the programme and translated it successfully into a bingo format.

This new bingo site is going for maximum publicity on launch and has released a TV advert. By direct contrast to the site itself, the scene depicted is a mock up of a Big Brother winner coming out of the house to fireworks and streamers. Asked what she is most looking forward to now she is out of the house the answer is, of course, playing Big Brother Bingo.

You would think that with 12 series behind them, plus various celebrity versions, Big Brother Bingo would have been able to secure the services of at lease one past winner that would appreciate another 5 minutes of fame to play the ‘winner’ in the advert.

Craig Phillips has done ok, as has Brian Dowling – now actually hosting the show on Channel 5. However, in recent years the winners have not been that memorable and 2008 and 2009 winners Rachel Rice and Sophie Reade would probably have been glad of the work.

Maybe Big Brother Bingo never thought to ask, as I can’t see it having been too expensive to have them. Or it could be that they are determined to maintain that certain distance from the actual show itself, so the bingo site can stand on its own merits even if (and when) the TV show comes to an end. That’s certainly not a bad idea.

WhichBingoAnita

Have you seen that Blockbusters is coming back to television this year? Although it was announced a while ago that this was a possibility it has only just been confirmed.

40 episodes if an all new Blockbusters have been commissioned by Talkback Thames and the show will be broadcast on Challenge TV. Challenge TV have been testing the water by running the old shows, but one fundamental change that has been made is that this will be a Blockbusters that will feature adult players and not schoolkids.

The childish innocence was part of the charm of the original show, but most are so streetwise these days that would probably be lost anyway. Many of the adults that will be on the show will probably remember it from first time round and some may have also featured on it – that would make a great story for the channel.

Within the online bingo world there is only one site that saw the writing on the wall for this brand a couple of years ago when they introduced a unique Blockbusters based bingo game. That site was Mecca Bingo and as you would not expect the format of the new show to change too much from the original they should be on to a winner.

The Mecca Bingo Blockbusters game is fast and furious as of course there are only 26 letters in the alphabet and players only need to get four or five to win a line. No chance to get bored in the Blockbusters room.

It is a shame that the confirmation of the all new Blockbusters had to come so close to the death of the iconic host of the original Blockbusters, Bob Holness, but hopefully the new show will be a fitting tribute to what he created all those years ago.

WhichBingoAnita

Even the best of us sometimes get frustrated when it would appear that a few lucky players are scooping all the prizes at our favourite sites, or even at new bingo sites that we have decided to join to see it we can find something a bit different to enjoy and those ‘same winners’ seem to be everywhere.

We ask ourselves how, with hundreds or sometimes thousands of players in the room, can the same people win more than one game in quick succession. We ask ourselves how, if there are only 25 people in the room can it not be our turn to win occasionally.

While many of us content ourselves with a few choice words in the direction of the screen or some rude gestures, others take to online forums or the WhichBingo reviews pages to scream about sites being fixed or a con or having planted players. Yet very few are prepared to accept that sheer good luck is what bingo in all its forms is all about.

Over Christmas the Virtue Fusion sites had the £500k giveaway every night. I logged in to have a look via Paddy Power Bingo one night an although there were 1400 people playing, I thought what the heck, someone has to win and invested £5 in tickets. In that game the same person won the two lines prize and the full house meaning they scooped around £1200 in prize money. How many people genuinely wished them well compared to those that said no way is that possible? But who knows how many games they had played or how much they had spent for their run of good fortune?

As a bingo veteran I am sure that online bingo is no more fixed than land based bingo can be. Card allocation is random as is the number generator for each game.

In an effort to try and explain once and for all why online bingo is totally safe and above board we have been doind some investigating at WhichBingo and the results will be shown in an Editorial on the site in the next few days.

At this point we will not be including any further comments in reviews or posts from readers that refer to the perceived issue of same winners at particular bingo sites. If our reviewers are all taken at face value most of us are wasting our time playing at nearly every bingo site out there as there is a list of same winners and we are not on it so don’t stand a chance, so why bother.

If that was the case I would have had to give up playing years ago as I would be bankrupt and most certainly in the divorce courts if I did not manage to win occasionally against this band of players that are out to deprive me of what is rightfully mine!

I’ve had fun doing the digging and I hope you will enjoy the findings and I look forward to seeing what you all have to say.

WhichBingoAnita

I love looking out for the adverts on the TV for the online bingo sites. They are much more common than they used to be and although the quality varies dramatically they do seem to be improving in most cases.

We all love an award (and by the way our Site of the Year Awards results will be posted shortly) and the marketing men have recently revealed their best and worst celebrity based TV adverts of 2011.

While none of the top 10 were bingo related (no surprises there), one bingo ad has the dubious honour of reaching the top 10 of those voted as being the worst of the year!

Campaign magazine polled its readers and it turns out that the Brits Bingo TV adverts featuring Gavin Henson and Katya Virshilas were not that popular and were voted as being the second worst of the year, behind Jenson Button and his Head and Shoulders shampoo ads.

That’s some going considering how bad the Just for Men hair dye ad is that features Luis Figo and the one for Flora Cuisine featuring Vernon Kay and his mother!

Personally, I loved the Brits Bingo ads as readers of these pages will know. I think they were funny and broke the mould of the normal boring bouncing bingo ball ads, but there is no accounting for taste.

We will have to wait and see if the Brits Bingo TV ad has fared any better in our own WhichBingo end of year poll. But in the meantime, given the success both Gavin and Brits Bingo are enjoying at the moment it will be a case of any publicity is good publicity.

WhichBingoAnita

I love Christmas! Everyone is happy and excited, there are presents from those you love and sometimes as bingo players we even get unexpected gifts from the online bingo sites we play at.

Now the one thing I am not a fan of are Christmas cards. All that work choosing them, writing them; the expense of posting them, only to put them in the recycling bin a few days later.

However, this year there has been a new addition to the people I am getting Christmas card from – the online bingo sites. Now the fact that things have started arriving through the post from ‘online’ bingo sites is strange enough and I can understand that they have marketing budgets to spend to ensure that players remember them and go to play. However, I have a message to some of these sites – don’t send me stuff in the post that doesn’t involve any free bonus money for me to spend!

Now the lovely people at Love Your Bingo and Ladbrokes Bingo have been good enough to send me a card and each had a small bingo bonus attached for me to use at their sites – very small I hasten to add, but still, it’s the thought that counts as they say.

On the other hand the Gamesys group of sites, Sun Bingo, Heart Bingo, CEASARS Bingo and Fabulous Bingo have all sent a card and very nice they are too – the Fabulous one in particular was a giant sized beauty – but that’s all that was in the envelope! No little surprise to tempt me to visit the sites at all. It was very disappointing from this usually most generous of operators.

If a bingo site is going to spend money on cards and postage I would expect it to be of some benefit to the customer – if not then I would prefer it to be ploughed back into the site to offer some better money games or an extra promo. It might help to keep the postman in a job, but a communication from a bingo site without an offer I can take advantage of is more likely to be regarded as junk mail than a nice thought.

That’s my ‘bah, humbug’ moan for this year, but on the other hand let me take this opportunity to wish all WhichBingo readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Have a good one everyone.

WhichBingoAnita

We’ve been thinking a lot about the issue of the perception of ‘same winners’ that is prevalent within the online bingo reviews pages at Which Bingo at the moment. While we give it no credance we will be trying to explain it as best we can in the next few days, having asked numerous online bingo suppliers their viewpoint as well as looking at it from a players point of view.

During our investigations I stumbled across this parody from Shout Bingo. This site is obviously interested in what WhichBingo readers have to say about their game play and has picked up on the strong references to ‘same winner syndrome’ and I think this short video is absolutely hilarious.

It is reproduced here with no intention to offend anyone either in connection with the period of history it is drawn from or by way of the language used – some of it is quite strong.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

(Close the ad as soon as it appears so as not to miss any of the laughs!).

WhichBingoAnita

You know it’s funny, I see all sorts of complaints about bingo sites, but I get to see all the good things that people have to say about bingo sites they play at too.

No-one likes losing, but this seems to be the main time that players take to the online bingo forums to air grievences which is a shame as it tends to give an unbalanced view of the particular bingo sites they were playing at.

Maybe what happened to me over the last few days is why people get disgruntled, but it also goes to show just how random the playing of online bingo actually is when it comes to hitting that winning streak.

I am a member of lots of bingo sites, but obviously can’t play at them all the time as I don’t have a bottomless pit of money. So it is that sites often send out free bingo bonus to tempt me back to the site. I received £5 recently from Gina Bingo and was very grateful as I wouldn’t otherwise have been playing anywhere that night.

I put the entire £5 on a single coverall, jackpot must go game that I happened to log on in time for and the ball count was 59 numbers. I was amazed to win the £127 jackpot and was over the moon. I stayed a bit longer, played a few more games and had a few goes on the slots. I won a few small houses, but nothing to speak of and withdrew £90. (Incidentally withdrawing is now much simpler at these sites). I had no wagering to meet as I had deposited in the last 30 days – that’s something to watch out for!

A couple of days later I got a £5 offer from Bingo Blowout on the same software. Great I thought and logged in full of expectation. I had never deposited there,  so did so to avoid a potential 15x wagering requirement and got a 350% bonus. Wow, I had over £60 to play with. Guess what – I won one £16 house and even shared that. There were no more or less players than there had been at Gina, I still didn’t max out as it would have cost too much, but those numbers just didn’t come out in my favour – but that’s the way it goes.

I would have loved to have won more, but it just wasn’t to be – maybe next time. Oh, and I am looking forward to my free bingo bonus from Yes Bingo and Bingo Funland too – I am ever the optimist.

WhichBingoAnita