It Asda be Gala Bingo

It has been a rollercoaster ride this year for Gala Coral, the chairman of online bingo and land based bingo company Gala Bingo has told the Telegraph.

Major changes were being put in place earlier in the year regarding the Gala Coral underlying borrowing structure and there was a risk at one point that the senior lenders, led by RBS, would pull the plug – but chairman Neil Goulden always felt there was one ace in the pack that was a failsafe, "If you call in the receivers you put all your licences at risk," he says. "That's why, in my view, the senior lenders would never have pushed the nuclear button."

Gala Coral are involved in many areas of gambling and gaming, but from our point of interest it is known that bingo took a major battering from the smoking ban, limits on slot machines and government taxes. However, unlike rival Rank, owner of Mecca Bingo, which is seeking new bingo players, Goulden is to concentrate on making the exisiting 1.5m customers on his database who no longer play bingo active again and promoting loyalty. He is not impressed by Rank's new venture into land based bingo, the Top Hat clubs, which he feels look like "a club designed by middle class people rather
than what the customers really want".

"It's the Asda approach"

"Our strategy is a value price strategy. It's the Asda approach. Everyday low prices."

The chairman is keen to emphasise that there is no truth in the rumour that the Gala Coral core business are to be broken up. "Rumours of early break-up are wide of the mark. Economically, it doesn't work," he stresses. That means that each of the five core businesses – bookie Coral, the Gala bingo and casino chains, the online gambling operations and a growing Italian business - has a part to play in ensuring the continuing growth of the business as a whole.

That is good news for Gala Bingo fans, both for online bingo and land based bingo users.

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