Betfred Bingo has introduced a newly madeover website with fresh graphics and design and a switch over to the Playtech bingo platform.  The switch from Parlay Entertainment software to Playtech software brings some changes to games and increases the site’s network capabilities, always a winning situation for players.

Along with the updated design, Betfred has introduced some great features that are sure to attract new players, as well as keep old players happy.  They are offering a very nice ￡20 to new registrants with no deposit required – becoming a rarity these days.  For those who choose to deposit, they have a large 300% matching bonus for initial deposits.

Perhaps it was time for a modernization from Betfred, one of the longest running companies in the online gaming industry.  They have long been known as one of the largest bookmakers in the UK offering sportsbook, casino games and poker to their patrons.

Bet365 Bingo has introduced an incredible offer as an incentive to try out the up and coming bingo site.  They’ve introduced a huge 500% bonus on initial deposits and new registrants only have to deposit ￡5 to take advantage of it.  Once you’ve signed up, you will receive a special bonus code in your email.  Simply enter the code in the form when you make your first deposit and ￡5 turns into ￡25 just like magic.  They also can enjoy 50% matching bonuses on future deposits of ￡10 or more so the site is giving a lot of value to new players and faithful players alike.

Bet365 has been rising in the ranks of popularity due to its variety of bingo games including both 75 ball and 90 ball bingo, plus the great selection of side games for players to kill time or take a break between bingo games.  They have a consistent record of providing a ton of value for your bingo dollars including penny bingo games, buy one, get one free bingo tickets and even free bingo offerings.  Naturally, the choices of instant games and other side games like slots and casino games only enhance their reputation.

Between now and November 8, Mecca Bingo players have the chance to win a huge ￡100,000 jackpot!  To win, a player needs to call full house within a set number of calls.  Each day, another number is added so it actually becomes easier every day to win this fabulous prize.  Everyone has a chance to win something though because all players who have cards in the game when the jackpot is won will win a share in the ￡10,000 bonus money that Mecca Bingo has added.

Also going on at the moment is the big Lucky Pink Boxes campaign that you’ve likely seen advertised on television.  With the theme song of “Luck be a Lady” from the popular musical Guys and Dolls, the adverts are catchy and hard to miss.

Mecca Bingo has taken a hit at the bingo halls over the past couple of years but seem to be making up for it in super campaigns and promotions of their online bingo offerings.

The CIPR Gold Pride award was given to Gala Bingo for their extremely successful PR campaign with Barack Obama’s stepmother prior to his election.  The partnership was a campaign for charitable causes with the aim of raising awareness and money for Sue Ryder Care.  Ms. Obama is reportedly a huge fan of bingo so it made sense for Gala Bingo to enlist her sponsorship in the campaign.

They raised thousands of pounds for charity with a number of different events that included launching a Mrs. Obama Bingo Room with proceeds going towards the charity.  Naturally, this high profile partnership attracted massive media attention with almost 200 different media outlets getting in on the action.

Judges with the CIPR awards said, “Spotting the news that Kezia Obama, the stepmother of President Obama, was a keen bingo fan prompted this audacious fundraising campaign.  Gala Bingo capitalized on the intense media interest around the inauguration to promote its commitment to Sue Ryder Care.  The judges liked the cheeky and imaginative stunt, which delivered well-measured results for galabingo.com and its charity partner.”

Naturally Gala Bingo is pleased with the award.  PR manager Lesley Hall said, “We’re delighted to win the CIPR Gold Pride Award as it recognizes the success of this unique campaign.  Its timely and quirky nature captured the media’s interest and was a great vehicle to raise awareness nationally of our ongoing commitment to raise vital funds for Sue Ryder Care.”

The Free Bingo Show will be broadcast 11 am to noon every weekday on the Channel Five website.  Anyone older than 18 can participate absolutely free and have the chance to win some pretty hefty jackpot prizes.

Channel Five has been moving into the gaming arena for a while with it’s five year agreement with NetPlay TV that has Supercasino.com airing on late night television and it’s newest partnership with PartyGaming to introduce a variety of new gaming services.  The goal is to diversify which every business needs to do in this economy and the new global nature of business.

As Jonathan Lewis, head of digital media for Channel Five, explains, “The business model that underpins commercial TV is changing and broadcasters must diversify their revenue streams.  Gaming activities such as Five’s online bingo and casino services are just one such example of how broadcasters can broaden their revenue base beyond traditional sources.”

Both Cashcade and Tombola are among the six bingo operators on the shortlist for this year’s EGR Awards.  Winners of this year’s awards will be announced at the dinner to be held on November 30 at London’s Old Billingsgate market – the same night for the opening of the EGR Live conference and exhibition.

Cashcade made the list last year, as well, but this year has moved up to 8 bingo networks and launched the free bingo room at Cheeky Bingo.  They also had a much publicized sponsorship of the Red Nose Day, one of the BBCs largest charity events.  With new owner PartyGaming, the bingo network has a lot of financial pull this year and is planning to introduce its brands throughout Europe in the following year.

Tombola is also on the top of the list for it’s impressive market share increase after ending the white-label contract with The Sun.  Some things that drew attention to the operator were the huge multi-media advertising campaign and the innovative loyalty programs like Play-Mates and MyTombola which were introduced this year.  The hybrid programs with the links to popular social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter.

Other operators are also within the top six, although it looks like it will come down to those top two, one never knows.  Jackpot Joy is in there, thanks to the dual offerings of low cost bingo rooms and newly launched games like Monopoly Snap.  Ladbrokes Bingo is on there with its switch to Virtue Fusion as well as William Hill Bingo.  Wink Bingo, while a newcomer to the bingo scene, still made the cut primarily from it’s huge promotions and highly publicized sponsorships of popular ITV television programs.

The UK search marketing agency, Greenlight, released it’s latest research that shows which sites are the most visible on Google – in other words, who comes up on page 1 of the results the most often?  Data was gathered on the top 1000 online gaming websites for the most sought after gambling terms related to bingo, poker and casinos.  Data shows more than 1.6 million searches are made per month just from the UK.

Of those millions of searches, only a dozen sites managed to get more than a 10% share of the search engine visibility.  Best positioned website overall in the gaming sector was meccabingo.co.uk with a hefty 61% reach.  The most popular game searched for was poker with 743,000 average searches per month, then bingo with 584,000 searches and finally casino with 274,000 average monthly searches.

Surprisingly, the most visible website for poker searches turned out to be Wikipedia.org with 64%.  PartyPoker.com was next in line with 58% of the searches.  Top dogs in the online bingo website category was FoxyBingo.com which actually got 100%, then DreamBingo.co.uk at 99% and MeccaBingo.com with 98%.  Giving the averages, it looks like the top online bingo sites could be getting more than 1000 new members just through search traffic and that’s only with a estimate of 2% conversion rate.

Skip on over to Sun Bingo to try to win yourself one of the £10 High Street vouchers they are giving out right now.  You need only to wager £2 on bingo or £10 on slots games on five different days between now and November 29 to be entered in the prize draw for these stocking stuffing vouchers.

Don’t forget, if you’re new to the Sun Bingo site, you can start of with double your money as they will match your initial deposit 100%.  You can practice your game with their free bingo from 8 pm to 10 pm each Tuesday night.  Even though it’s free to play, you can still win a cash prize, from £10 on a single line to £50 for the full house.  Not bad for playing for free, is it?

Definitely take a shot at Sun Bingo as it’s a very popular online bingo site.  Not only does it have good bonuses and free bingo, it also has a wonderful variety of side games like slots and scratch cards.  The people who play there are known to be very friendly so there is a great community feeling to the site, as well.

Virtue Fusion is the bright, shining star of bingo technology these days.  They have burst upon the online bingo scene and snapped up a good chunk of the competition in the market with their streamlined and rich-features software platform.  They just announced their newest arrangement with Offsidebet.com, another new company in the industry.  The two plan on releasing their own branded online bingo site in the near future that will directly target the rapidly growing Spanish bingo market.

Virtue Fusion has quickly become the largest independent online bingo network in the world with over 30,000 players on the platform daily and with huge sums going through the networks.  Both the CEO of Offsidebet and the CEO of Virtue Fusion have expressed their enthusiasm for this latest partnership.

Matt Jellicoe, CEO of Offsidebet, said, “Virtue Fusion proivde us with not only a feature rich product, but also with unrivalled European prize pool liquidity, making our decision in selecting them a very straightforward one.”

Bob McCulloch, CEO of Virtue Fusion, said, “We are delighted that they have chosen Virtue Fusion as their preferred partner for online bingo.  Although a relatively young company, the directors of Offsidebet.com have a wealth of experience in the online gaming market.  This experience is evident in the way in which they have developed their business plan and the success of the company to date.”

This new venture sounds promising and we’re looking forward to seeing what these two rising stars come up with for an online bingo site.

Mecca Bingo will launch the Lucky Pink Box promotion on October 28 with a new television ad campaign that will air on ITV.  Along with this new advertising campaign comes a plethora of new and fantastic promotions, the’ve promised.  The Lucky Pink Box will have a guaranteed jackpot of a whopping £100,000 – now that will keep players on the edge of their seats for sure!

New and exciting promotions are no surprise from Mecca Bingo, with their close to five decades of bingo fun both offline and on.  They offer a very nice £50 worth of free play to new registrations which is far more than just about any other online bingo site.  That is a great way to try out all the games and get familiar with the site and software before committing any real funds to the site.  Although with the promotions that keep coming, you will want to make a deposit just to get your chance at a crack at the fantastic jackpots available.

New players even get their own special Newbie Room, dedicated to them, where they can get free tickets to play and still get a shot at some big jackpots.  It’s a great place to get some practice in and get any questions answered by the professional chat hosts you will find in there.