Named by the organizers as Online Bingo Oscars, the Online Bingo Site of the year has been awarded to several winners over the past five years. These are the most honorable awards and the winners are chosen by the votes cast by playing Bingo public. In 2006, Mecca Bingo was the winner and in the previous year, it was Think Bingo. From December 1, Bongo is open for nominations and they will run until the year end.

New UK Online Bingo Site of the year is also run by the same organizing committee and it was Gone Bingo who won in the last year. CM of the year award is another notable award and it was bagged by Bingo Scotland in the previous year.

Phil Fraser, the recognized expert in the Sector and prestigious owner of WhichBingo expressed interest in celebrating and praising those entertaining sites which bring joy to the players.

He appreciated several bingo sites that offer excellent satisfaction and fun for the players. WhichBingo is running Bingo awards from 2003 and Fraser added that he was completely amused by the improvement in the market.

Players’ choice awards will be launched on January 30, 2009 where the organizers and players put combined efforts to select the winner. Those UK sites that have topped data collected by Bingo as well as the survey collected from the players will be the winner of this year.

The schedule for these pre-purchase games runs from Thursday to Saturday night, so you can still enjoy a night out on the town without worrying about winning the “big one”. The “Thursday Thriller” is one of these games, it has a ₤1 000 prize pot and the “Weekly Whopper” is played on a Saturday with a ₤5 000 prize pot. These are both guaranteed, so if you call bingo, it doesn’t matter how many calls it takes to get there, you will win.

The “Monthly Monster” is probably the most exciting game of all. This is played on the last Saturday of every month and has a guaranteed prize of ₤10 000. This is also a pre-purchase jackpot that was recently won by a Think Bingo player by the username of “che”.

She said that she wanted to purchase the full 24 tickets allowed for the “Monthly Monster”, so what she did was pre-purchase tickets in ones and two’s in the weeks leading up to the game as she couldn’t afford them all in one go. It paid off and she won!

Over the last two years we have seen a liberalization of various other European market places, one of which is Spain, the other Italy. Already we have many UK online bingo operators casting their eyes and businesses upon the Spanish market, and I am sure that Italy will soon follow. The launch of Parlay 5 has seen online bingo software that is adaptable for many languages, and this will certainly help with an entry into the European marketplace.

Belgian authorities are paving the way for a regulated online gaming marketplace that could see operators being able to enter as soon as 2009. This can only be a good thing, particularly when you consider that so many European countries have Government monopolized gaming markets. With the opening up of more marketplaces countries such as Germany and France are going to have to follow the trend or face the wrath of the EU community.

Resurrection Manifestations, the developers of the old Mecca Bingo Hall in Essex Street, Islington have been give permission to change the old building into a place of worship despite the fact that there may be a parking problem for worshippers. They are expecting a 2 300 strong congregation to be worshipping these and as their already existing church facilities has around 43% arriving by car, there are fears that parkers will clogg local streets on Sundays when there are no parking restrictions.

Despite reservations that there will be no parking available for regular customers to traders in the area, the panel was so impressed by the projected development of the old bingo club, that they gave their permission anyway. The development is going to contain cinemas, a restaurant and café’s. Now I read this and I am wondering, where the heck is the church going to be?

Reverend David Prince has said that they will not be bringing in people from all over London, they were going to try to focus on drawing the local community to the church facilities, and will also encourage people to make use of public transport.

Realising the importance of this a local Crowland community group got together to donate a bingo machine in memory of two of the recently deceased members of the St. Raphael Club who meet once a week at Trinity Court. John Tinsley and Sheila Doughty recently passed away and in order to remember them the Chairman of the group wanted to do something positive. He remembers that they always used to have a joke and a laugh when they played bingo, so they decided to present the social club with a bingo machine. I personally cannot think of any nicer thing to have donated in their memory, I am sure they are in bingo heaven right now smiling down at their group of friends and having a joke together.

Talking of playing Bingo games, ladies are very shrewd in calculating the risks and control their stakes come what may, a mindset not at all feasible for the men folk.  But the follow up of the tips and tricks relating to the playing of games will be steady with these players belonging to the feminine gender.

So many examples can be quoted, but suffice it to take two recent winners, both of them ladies. The first winner, 61 years ” young” married with two children and grand child, has won £41,000 all put together.  She has been playing Bingo games for over 32 years and is a shining example for slow but steady efforts to reach the winning post.  The other winner, also a senior with four children and a grand child, playing Bingo for 30 years, has won a whopping £76,000. Both of them have struck full-house before others.

The wonderful heartening part of these winnings is yet to come – both these generous souls have pleasantly agreed to split their prizes with their friends.  Hats off!

Thanks to the world wide net, shopping for home needs has come a long way forward from the olden days, when people had to roam about from shop to shop to get all things needed.  Now just by the click of the mouse they can shop online, view the products in colourful photos and videos, evaluate their worth by going through the descriptions and usages and fill up their cart waiting to be loaded with items purchased.

One of the pioneers of U.K. Bingo online sites – Gala Bingo – has announced nearly £1000 worth of shopping vouchers to their member-players online.  The vouchers are for the grabs of One Line, Two Line and Full House winners in proportions. A super idea for promoting Bingo and online shopping indeed!

Online bingo is a growing market and it has been said that it is fastest growing sector of the i-gaming market. Parlay Entertainment has been behind this all the way and they currently provide software to more than a hundred online bingo operators including Unibet, Virgin, Paddy Power and Yahoo. Their unparalleled bingo software technology is in demand in the UK, US, Europe, Scandinavia and Latin America.

So if you are thinking of getting into the “ball” game and starting your own online bingo site remember to choose a software solution that is proven and dependable, the software that created the bingo trend itself and remember the name Parlay for the best in bingo entertainment pleasure.

There are of course the highly sought after Which Bingo Site of the year awards and a couple of other lesser ones, but it almost appears to be that when the results of these accredited awards are up a bingo site will still approach a Market Analysis company to give themselves a better chance at being the best.

I think that this is the approach that Foxy Bingo has taken, getting Kadence Business Research and Market Analysis to question UK online bingo players, 734 in all and ask them what their favourite online bingo site is, eventually coming up with the result that Foxy is the best.

I also believe that Foxy Bingo is a wonderful bingo site and is very popular too. But really all this is a numbers game, contracting a Market analyst to do the numbers for you will probably eventually lead to you being the top online bingo site, regardless!

Boylebingo have partnered with Ascot Bingo Ventures in their endeavour to get their online bingo business off the ground, but it is felt by some members of the online bingo playing community that this venture might not be as successful as Boyles think it is going to be, because they have made an error in choosing a downloadable product, as most online bingo players prefer to play bingo online using a product that does not have to be downloaded.

Although the company vision is to provide total commitment to customer service levels, the fact that their online bingo product has to be downloaded may work against them. More online players are opting for products that don’t need to be downloaded as they feel downloads may harm their PC’s or in some way slow down their performance.

Whatever happens, it is a new venture for Boyle Sports and we wish them every success with it.