Buzz Bingo Up for Sale? What It Means for Your Local Club
The owner of Buzz Bingo is looking for new investors, and the chain’s boss is warning that a Budget tax rise could hit bingo halls hard. If you’re a Buzz regular, here’s what’s going on and what it means for your next session.
If Buzz Bingo is your local, first things first: nothing changes for you today. The halls are open, the callers are calling, so there’s no need to panic.
What may change is behind the scenes. Sky News has reported that ICG, the investment firm that has owned Buzz Bingo since 2021, has brought in bankers to talk to potential buyers. Specialist sports and gaming adviser Oakvale Capital is running the process.
- What This Means for You
- Why Might Buzz Bingo Be Sold?
- Buzz Bingo’s History
- Potential Tax Changes
- The Unseen Tax Cut
What This Means for You
Right now: Nothing changes. Your membership, your favourite sessions and your local club carry on as normal.
If a sale goes ahead: New investment could mean more money spent on refurbishing clubs and improving the experience. A new owner may also bring changes to sessions, prices or bingo bonuses, but nobody knows the details yet.
The thing to watch: The Budget. Any decision on Machine Gaming Duty is likely to have a bigger effect on clubs than the sale itself.
With 76 clubs across England and Scotland and over 2,000 staff, Buzz is a big part of the UK’s bingo scene.
Buzz Bingo was voted Best Bingo Club at the WhichBingo Awards 2026, with nearly 500,000 votes cast by the public. Players clearly have a soft spot for it, and plenty of them will be keeping their dabbers crossed for good news.
And if you’ve never been, some of these venues are worth a look for the buildings alone. Buzz Bingo Tooting started life as a cinema in 1931, is now a listed Art Deco building, and is said to have hosted Frank Sinatra, the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. Not bad for a night out.
We’ll keep an eye on the sale and the Budget and update you as soon as we hear more.
📺 Watch: Inside Buzz Bingo
Buzz Bingo is one of the most recognisable names in the UK bingo industry, but how much do you know about this famous brand?
Join Charlie Shakespeare as he goes behind-the-scenes of Buzz Bingo’s high-street bingo halls, as well as what happens at the Buzz Bingo online bingo and casino site.
Why Might Buzz Bingo Be Sold?
Sky News quoted sources close to the business who said the aim was to find investors who can put fresh money in and help the chain grow faster. Prospective bidders are expected to include private equity firms that like consumer-facing businesses.
It’s worth knowing this is all at an early stage. Sources describe the process as exploratory, and no price tag has been mentioned. A previous sale attempt, run by Nomura in 2023, was called off, so there’s no guarantee a deal happens this time either.
And the numbers have been positive for Buzz of late.
Buzz Bingo’s revenues rose 11% to £241.4m in its last financial year, with double-digit growth in both its clubs and its online site. Admissions and revenues both went up last year for the first time since the smoking ban came in back in 2007.
Even better for anyone who loves busy bingo halls, Buzz welcomed 190,000 new club customers in the last financial year, and half of them were under 35. New customer numbers are up a further 12.4% so far this year.
Buzz Bingo’s History
Buzz has had more name changes than most of us have had hot dinners. The brand evolved from Coral to Gala before landing as Buzz, with the Gala rebrand taking place in 2018 under Caledonia Investments.
Then came the pandemic. ICG picked up the business from Caledonia for “a nominal sum” during COVID, when bingo halls up and down the country had their doors firmly shut. Five years on, the business looks in much healthier shape.
Potential Tax Changes
Why does a slots tax affect your bingo? Because the slots areas in clubs help pay the bills that keep the lights on in the main hall. If that income takes a knock, some clubs could struggle.
There’s speculation that Machine Gaming Duty, the tax charged on slot machines, could go up in this month’s Budget.
Buzz’s chief executive, Dominic Mansour, has been outspoken about the risk of tax rises on the gaming sector.
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Industry bosses have warned that a big rise could make some sites unviable. Mansour has said that a duty hike “would mean the closing of clubs” and jobs put at risk.
The Unseen Tax Cut
The irony is that the government scrapped Bingo Duty less than a year ago, a move the industry welcomed with open arms. Whether Chancellor John Healy (pictured above) gives with one hand and takes with the other remains to be seen.
And players themselves say they haven’t seen the impact of the Bingo Duty cut.
In WhichBingo’s survey of 1,915 UK players, only 10% of people say they have visited a club more often as a result, and only 10% of those who did visit noticed any price cut or improved prize values.
The policy’s intent, to allow cheaper, livelier clubs drawing players back through the doors has not yet reached the customer.
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