Fraser Capital Management, the parent company of Club 3000, has bought three bingo clubs in Manchester and one in Bradford, Liverpool, Peterlee and Preston.

The funds to acquire the business have been lent by Clydesdale Bank and ends another chapter in the long and turbulent history of the Buckingham Bingo chain.

Club 3000 currently runs three bingo clubs in Coatbridge, Glenrothes and Cardiff and expects turnover to quadruple from £5 million to £20 million on the back of the acquisition. The company will grow from 120 employees to 480 employees.

Brian Fraser, managing director of Fraser Capital Management, Brian Fraser, said: “We’re delighted to complete this acquisition which will allow us to progress our plans for expansion of the Club 3000 brand.

“Our outlets in Scotland and Wales have been extremely successful and our aim is to replicate that success in our new North of England locations with a full relaunch under the Club 3000 brand in August.

“The industry has had a tough few years due to the general state of the economy as well as factors such as the smoking ban and an increasing tax burden. Despite these challenges, our commitment to providing customers with good service and value for money has paid off and we’ll be carrying those values forward into our expanded operation as we bring our new outlets on stream.

“This is very much a niche industry and Clydesdale Bank have seen how we’ve operated down the years and have developed a real knowledge and understanding of our business.

“We’re long-term customers of the Bank and their support has been vital in helping us to build our existing clubs from scratch into a major success story.”

Brian Fraser has been involved in the bingo industry for more than 30 years. In 1997, he founded the Riva Bingo chain before selling it to private equity investors in 2004.

Ken Smith, managing partner at Clydesdale Bank’s Lanarkshire Financial Solutions Centre (FSC), said: “Brian is recognised throughout the industry for his track record of success and for the shrewd approach he has taken to building the Club 3000 brand.

“We’ve worked with Brian and his team at Fraser Capital for 11 years and the close relationship we’ve been able to develop meant we were fully aware of the potential which extending the brand across the UK had for the business.”

Margaret Craig, 63, was kicked in the face by the robber who snatched her handbag, which had a total of £200 inside. She was taken to hospital following the attack.

Mrs Craig told the Daily Record: “I was at the bingo and decided to walk home because it was such a nice night.

I was going on to Portal Terrace when I heard someone running behind me. When I turned round, this guy started pulling my bag and said, ‘Give me it.’

“I swore at him and said no but he kept pulling and pulling and we struggled. I landed on the grass verge. That’s when he kicked me in the face.

“When he kicked me a second time, the strap broke and he ran away. I screamed and screamed. A guy came down and helped me.”

Police constable Duncan MacKintosh said: “This was a terrible attack on a lone woman. We are determined to find the person who was responsible.”

Aberdeen has three bingo clubs, a Riva Bingo, a Mecca Bingo and a Gala Bingo.

Three fire engines and two police vans attended the incident at the Market Street bingo club which also led to the neighbouring cinema being evacuated over safety fears.

The bingo club was closed while Scottish Borders council officials from the building control team investigated whether it was safe to carry on using the bingo hall.

It is understood a suspended ceiling suddenly gave way but that players were able to move out of the way before it fell entirely. An ambulance was called but all the players in the bingo club were fine.

The Pavilion Bingo hall is one of the most popular in the Scottish borders.

The crash happened on Saturday 8 May at about 9.15pm when players were being transported back from the Crown Bingo and Social Club in Hudson Street, Tyne Dock, South Shields.

All of the passengers were able to escape on their own from the minibus but three had to be taken to South Tyneside District Hospital for treatment. Police said all injuries were relatively minor and the bingo players had been lucky to escape relatively unscathed.

A spokeswoman for North East Ambulance Service, said: “Twelve people were on the bus. No one was trapped and they were all able to get themselves out of the vehicle.” Police are still investigating the incident and asked any witnesses to get in touch.

The Crown Bingo club in South Shields is unrelated to the online Crown Bingo operation.

Edward Timpson visited the Mecca Bingo hall in Crewe on the Friday before the election and even took his mother and the team from his office to join in the fun.

Timpson has been a leading campaigner for the reduction in tax on bingo and on his personal website even boasts on the day of the election that he has put his “constituents before my party, and [has] rebelled on important local issues like reducing bingo taxation for 20,000 Crewe and Nantwich bingo players”.

He told the Crewe Guardian: “I’ve enjoyed another fun evening here today, and bumped into many people I know, some of whom I have helped in my surgeries! Everybody I’ve spoken to can see the tax is unfair to the industry and effectively discriminates against women and older people.”

Timpson, 36, is apparently a reasonably regular visitor to the Crewe Mecca Bingo hall following his win in a by-election in May 2008. He comes from the Timpson shoe repair family and was a barrister before being elected a MP, in a contest which was marked by a campaign in which Labour branded him a ‘toff’.

Timpson is rated a 2/5 chance (bet £5 to make £2 profit) with Ladbrokes in the Crewe and Nantwich election betting odds.

Timpson recently ran his eighth London Marathon in four hours and 26 minutes.

Clair Borrill from Southport was fined a total of £700 after pleading guilty to the offence. She had successfully claimed another bingo player’s £500 jackpot at the Mecca Bingo hall in Lord Street, Southport by claiming to be the winning player.

Borrill, 27, was able to take advantage of stressed staff during a busy Sunday night session at her local bingo hall. Staff also paid out the correct winner but when they identified who had been falsely paid the prize the police were called and Borrill was charged with fraud.

Audrey White, 58, didn’t even mean to buy the £5 scratchcard as she planned to buy a £2 card but the shop assistant gave her the wrong one.

Her huge win comes just three years after Nat West tried to repossess her home and she was diagnosed with cancer.

She told the Felixstowe Evening Star: “It really hasn’t sunk in – it’s just unbelievable.

“When I scratched off the panels and it said £1 million, I just sat and stared at it for 20 minutes.

“People keep saying I didn’t know you could win a million pounds on a scratchcard, but everyone seems to be so happy for me.

“The first thing I am going to do is to pay off my mortgage and do a few home improvements such as a conservatory.

“I don’t drive so I won’t need a flash car and I am not one for exotic holidays. I am not going to change anything immediately and plan to carry on working – but it’s amazing to think I have that security and will never have to worry about money again.

Mrs White works at The Palace bingo and cinema complex in Crescent Road, Felixstowe. She bought her scratchcard at the  Tesco supermarket in Hamilton Road.

Mrs White was nearly repossessed by NatWest in 2006 over a £5,000 overdraft. Despite having paid £20,000 in interest the bank insisted she owed another £18,000 in interest. The matter was eventually settled.

Northern Ireland Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie said there was a need to update current legislation which is “not robust enough to deal with modern gambling”.

The current laws date from 1985; in 2006 the government planned to update them but failed to do so after waiting for devolution to return in order to pass them.

Ms Ritchie said: “Current legislation is old, inflexible and hard to understand and the gambling market has moved on. There are new products and new ways of gambling that the current law never envisaged.

“It is in everyone’s interests that the gambling industry is regulated effectively which is why I am initiating this review.”

It is expected that the law changes will also clarify the rules on online bingo companies advertising on TV in Northern Ireland. Currently bingo companies cannot advertise on Northern Irish television.

19 year old Lynsey Dickenson said that when she was playing one weekend she hit a full house and assumed she had won the £5,000 prize shown on the club’s screens.

But when she went to collect her money she was told there had been an error and she would only be paid £1,000. Ms Dickenson has now reported her case to the Gambling
Commission and believes she should be paid in full.

She told the Sunday Sun: “I was over the moon when I won, really excited, I’d never won anything big before. The board definitely showed £5,000 and I am convinced it was announced for the same amount although they deny it.

“What’s more a member of staff even signed a document – called a Prize Winner’s document – for £5,000. It was only when I went to claim the money that things went wrong.

“Now I have made a complaint and it is going to go before an independent third party.”

Regional manager Paul Cudlip wrote to the player, saying: “Upon investigation I do accept the internal visual display board was showing an incorrect prize and was in fact displaying the expected board prize for the following evening.

“The signing of the prize winner’s document for £5000 by the member of staff is a normal duty carried out by our bingo operatives who use the visual display board to acknowledge the details to be put on these documents and is only part of the overall process of validating claims.”

Top Ten recently delisted from the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange and has struggled in recent years following the smoking ban and general declines in bingo club attendance.

Resurrection Manifestations, an evangelical church, have bought the freehold on the art deco building, which was once Tony Blair’s local bingo hall.

It was closed by Mecca Bingo in 2007 because it was not profitable; player numbers had declined sharply and management decided it would be too expensive a premises to convert into a modern club.

Priot to being a bingo hall it was a Carlton Cinema.

Aaron Armah, Resurrection Manifestations marketing director, told the Islington Chronicle: “We want to restore the building back to its former glory after being left empty for the last two and a half years and further vandalised.”

Their plans for the building can be viewed at Islington Town Hall on September 11th and 12th.

One lucky woman won £41,000 for hitting the jackpot while the remaining cash were shared among the 438 bingo players also playing in the same bingo hall. They picked up just under £100 each for taking part in the game.

The local woman who won the jackpot and does not want to be named told club staff: “I still can’t believe it’s happened – it’s like a dream.”

The clubs, which will cost around £1.5 million each, will have restaurants, table service for drinks and aims to upgrade the bingo club experience to attract younger, wealthier customers.

Rank chief executive Ian Burke told This Is Business East Midlands: “We developed the new concept which we launched in Beeston. We plan to re-model two more clubs in the second half of the year which will open in the first half of next year. Depending on their performance, we will roll out the idea to more of our existing 103 clubs across the country.”

Approximately 60 jobs are expected to be created by the two club upgrades.

David Clarke, 24, had been drinking heavily at the North Ormesby Institute when he was asked to be quiet during a bingo game.

Jeffrey Bullock, the vice president of the club, asked Mr Clarke and his friends to make less noise during the bingo sessions as they were “shouting and screaming”, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Mr Bullock then suggested they could have further discussions about it in the club office but Mr Clarke said: “Never mind the office, we’ll take this outside”. He then was asked to leave the club but refused and instead headbutted Mr Bullock. The two men then struggled and Mr Bullock’s eye was injured by Mr Clarke’s thumb.

Mr Bullock was treated in hospital for a fractured cheekbone.

He was charged with grevious bodily harm; his defending barrister said Mr Clarke had issues with alcohol and controlling his emotions but the judge, Recorder Martin Bethel QC, said: “I don’t feel in the public interest I can properly overlook these matters with anything but a custodial sentence.”

The Gala Bingo Hall in Hobson Street, Cambridge closed on May 25 was squatted on Monday 27 July by Occupy Cambridge, a self-described group of “squatters, anarchists, revolutionists, land rights types and general social misfits”.

The Gala Bingo Hall is now owned by property developers who plan to turn the former Central Cinema into executive flats.

The property has been used as a bingo hall since 1972 but was closed as part of a cost-cutting exercise by Gala Bingo’s parent company, Gala Coral, who closed four other bingo halls at the same time.

One of the squatters told the Cambridge Evening News they planned to screen films and offer bingo nights at the property. Scott Bricas, 25, an IT worker from Cambridge, saod: “About 20 people occupied it on Monday night and now we are in the process of making it safe.

“Our vision is to reach out to the community and we’ve already had a lot of support. We have contacted some of the 15 staff who were made redundant when the bingo hall closed and asked for their help. They wanted to occupy it themselves.

“A lot of people were gutted when it closed. We hope to make it a community space for everyone.

“There’s a film projector and we can have a big screen to show films and it’s open to community groups who need a space to fundraise. There is also access for disabled people.”

The squatters have previously occupied a site that Tesco planned to use for a new superstore but were evicted after lengthy legal action. Legal experts contacted by Bingo News believed it could take up to three months to remove the squatters from the former Gala Bingo hall.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, took four questions from MPs who questioned why the government was doing so little for the UK bingo industry.

Unfortunately there was little to cheer the bingo industry as the minister played a straight bat to the questions and gave little indication that any change to the taxation regime was on the way.

It would appear that the government is quite happy with the status quo and that any cut is unlikely, even while bingo halls struggle to survive and the major chains like Gala Bingo and Mecca Bingo announce regular closures of their bingo halls.

Hansard’s account of the bingo proceedings is re-printed below:

Bingo (Taxation)

3. Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): What recent discussions he has had with bingo operators on the effects on them of the taxation regime for bingo clubs.

The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Sarah McCarthy-Fry): We have had continued dialogue with the bingo industry both before and since the Budget on the impact of the tax regime. I last met the industry just two weeks ago, and that dialogue will of course continue.

Bob Spink: I thank the Minister for her answer. She and the whole House understand the social importance of bingo to our communities, and that the business of bingo is a caring and a good business. Will the Government keep the taxation of bingo under review in future Budgets, to ensure that it is taxed fairly given its social function?

14 July 2009 : Column 142

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: The hon. Gentleman is an advocate for all his constituents who have written to him. I know from letters that I have received that many hon. Members have received correspondence from their constituents about the importance of bingo. Of course we will continue the dialogue with the industry, and these things are always kept under review in the pre-Budget report and the Budget.

Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North) (Lab): May I suggest that my hon. Friend consult other Ministers about which forms of gambling are most dangerous and which are most innocent, and then consider taxing gambling according to the danger of addictive tendencies? That would be not only fair but helpful to those who suffer from compulsive gambling.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: We have not had a policy of taxing gambling in accordance with how addictive or dangerous it is. That does not mean to say that we would not consider that in future. We have to take into account a lot of considerations as we look at different rates of duty, particularly for the bingo industry. The changes that we made in the Budget were designed to simplify the regime.

Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con): Does the Minister wish to go down in history as Miss Killjoy?

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I do not wish to go down in history as Miss Killjoy, and I certainly do not think that is my function or what I am doing in this instance.

Jeff Ennis (Barnsley, East and Mexborough) (Lab): In a response on this very issue that I received from one of my hon. Friend’s ministerial colleagues, dated 30 April, it was pointed out to me that over the past six years, taxation on bingo had fallen from 35 per cent. to 22 per cent. That is good news, but given that bingo clubs are still closing, would it not be better to consider lowering the tax even further? After all, it is better to get taxation at 20 per cent. from a thriving bingo club than to close clubs down at 22 per cent.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: As I said in answer to previous questions, we are of course in ongoing dialogue with the industry about the impact of what has been done. My hon. Friend is quite right that as recently as 2003, the effective tax rate was 35 per cent. We will continue to look at the matter and, as I have said, we recognise the importance of bingo to many of our constituents, as evidenced by the correspondence that we have received.

The man confronted two youths on a scrambler bike outside the Granada Bingo Hall in East Prescot Road, Dovecot, Liverpool at 9.53pm on Saturday night.

He followed the bike through the bingo hall car park before the passenger on the orange and white scrambler bike dismounted and fired four shots. One of the shots hit the man in his left leg.

Last night he was undergoing surgery, although medics described the injury as a relatively minor flesh wound.

The Granada Bingo Hall is better known locally as Bugsy’s.

Detective Chief Inspector Richie Davies, from Merseyside Police’s anti-gun and gang crime Matrix unit, told the Liverpool Daily News: “This was a cowardly and violent attack on a man who had been at work at the local bingo hall.

“Fortunately, he suffered only minor injuries to his leg and is recovering in hospital.

“However we take all incidents of this nature extremely seriously and I would like to reassure the community that we are determined to catch those responsible and get them and the weapon that was used off our streets.

“I would appeal to anyone who witnessed the incident or has any information about who may be responsible to come forward.

“In particular I would like to hear from anyone who saw anyone riding around the local area on an orange and white CTM-model scrambler motorbike last night to get in touch.”

Police are examining bullet casings found in the car park and plan door-to-door investigations from today to establish the identity of the shooters.

Neil Bartlett’s Everybody Loves A Winner , which is being played as part of the Manchester International Festival, is all about life in a bingo hall. It looks at the employees, the players, their motivations, their interactions and why they play bingo.

The audience also gets to play bingo after the interval – and it appears the largely middle class audience gets to really understand why bingo players love the game they play every day.  The FT’s critic relates that 595 of the 700 strong audience bought tickets for the second half game during the interval.

The play is on at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester until August 1st.

It’s probably best we let the reviewers speak for themselves:

Audacious hope in the bingo hall

By Ian Shuttleworth (Financial Times)

Published: July 7 2009 03:00

I had never feelingly understood the phrase “hoping against hope” the way I did on seeing Neil Bartlett’s Everybody Loves A Winner , part of the Manchester International Festival. Bartlett’s portrait of the culture of bingo – the staff, the players, the rituals of the game – evokes an unsettling blend of optimism and desperation. Fifteen players chorically recite a kind of credo, affirming their belief in the possibility of, and the possibilities offered by, a win even after countless failures; the staff minister to their faith and see them through their crises.

Those 15 players are members of the cast, but on the night there are more than 600, since the audience join in; this is not an outside-in “look at” its subject, it’s immersive. When an audience member excitedly shouts a win, even though it is a non-cash practice game, caller Frank is spot-on when he jocularly mocks, “And you thought this was a game for other people!” On the night I attended, 595 out of an audience of 700-750 bought tickets in the interval for the second-act game with a top cash prize of £200; and yes, a “civilian” won – there is no rigging of the games that matter, this is the experience itself. Ian Puleston-Davies is excellent as Frank, working the crowd affably even though we also see his private bitterness. The man sitting beside me was a bingo operator: he remarked that the aesthetic of the show was a few years out of date (the big chains have since tried to glitz up the business), but pronounced the show overall “scarily accurate”.  (4 stars)

Everybody Loves A Winner, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester

(Rated 3/ 5 )

Financial Times review – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8f155606-6a8c-11de-ad04-00144feabdc0.html

Life – as luck would have it

Reviewed by Lynne Walker

Tuesday, 7 July 2009

Three lucky audience members at Neil Bartlett’s new show will find out in the game of bingo, complete with cash prizes, that features in each performance of Everybody Loves a Winner, part of the Manchester International Festival.

Three lucky audience members at Neil Bartlett’s new show will find out in the game of bingo, complete with cash prizes, that features in each performance of Everybody Loves a Winner, part of the Manchester International Festival.

Does everybody really love a winner? Three lucky audience members at Neil Bartlett’s new show will find out in the game of bingo, complete with cash prizes, that features in each performance of Everybody Loves a Winner, part of the Manchester International Festival. Having mastered the bingo lingo by the end of the “early session”, anyone over 18 years old is invited to turn punter, a fifty-pence ticket buying first-hand and, for many, first-time experience of the thrill of the numbers game.

The Rex bingo hall – the outer area of the transformed Royal Exchange Theatre, occupied by garish slot machines, the stage dressed down with patterned carpet, dingy chairs and neon lighting – is scarcely the Las Vegas-style super-casino once bid for and won, then lost, by Manchester. Here in the soulless surroundings of the Rex, the mainly female, mainly middle-aged clientele wonder “if hope has a number” and, if so, will it have their name on it today? The social interaction between these lonely, feisty and often poignant characters is observed, in the course of one day as stupefyingly dull as any other, by a bourgeois, affluent theatre audience.

Eavesdropping quite shamelessly on the lives of others in the course of his bingo-bingeing research, Bartlett – both writer and director – and his team have created a colourful and richly varied line-up of bingo players. There’s a satisfyingly improvised feel to the repartee between the hall management, as well as in the often fractious encounters among the customers. Each of the gamblers has her (or his) own reason for being in that drab hall, where the prospect of a life-changing win is sufficient, or perhaps the sole, reason for living. Besides revealing tantalising nuggets of personal details, they break into chant, Greek-chorus style, affirming their belief in the “maybe … one day… ” promise of fantastic luck. Yet, though there’s envy and weary resentment, pent-up anger and contempt, there’s remarkably little self-pity.

There is, however, a lack of narrative substance and emotional texture. Fortunately, that doesn’t stand in the way of some concentrated acting. As the manager, Sally Lindsay puts on a valiant face as she chivvies her young employees, encourages her community of regulars and welcomes us, her “guests” to the gaming table. But the tone of her moral tirade, crudely stuck on at the end, is unconvincing. Ian Puleston-Davies does a cracking vaudeville turn as the caller, sinking into mental disarray, crunched up by numbers perhaps. The all-singing, all-dancing trio of staff provides fine support and adds to the novelty value of a show which, though not quite the winner it promised to be, was worth the gamble.

Independent review – http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/everybody-loves-a-winner-royal-exchange-theatre-manchester-1734275.html

The report, titled “Bingo – UK – April 2009″, examines the effect of the smoking ban has had on UK bingo halls and how much it has been affected by the economic downturn. It also looks at the extent to which online bingo has supplanted real world trips to bingo halls.

Bingo News has read the full Mintel bingo report and has picked out the following information as particularly interesting to online bingo players:

• The UK bingo hall industry has seen admissions and revenue decline since 2006: between 2006 and 2009, revenue fell by an estimated 26% in current price terms and admissions by 22%.
• Mintel’s consumer research shows that in January 2009, the proportion of players who had stopped visiting clubs due to the recession was 16% while only 10% have changed their spending patterns because of the smoking ban.
• 6% of club bingo players have played online and the proportion experimenting online is growing. “There is now a slow bleed of club players to the online world,” says the Mintel report.
• Gala Bingo and Mecca Bingo control 80% of revenues in UK bingo halls but their online presence is much weaker with an estimated combined 23% market share of the UK online bingo market. Sites like Crown Bingo and Foxy Bingo have established a major market position despite having no real world bingo hall operations.
• The change in the rateable value of bingo halls announced in December 2008 will provide a substantial financial benefit to bingo hall operators, especially Gala Bingo and Mecca Bingo. The backdated settlement, to reflect the introduction of the Gambling Act, will see an English bingo hall with a current rateable value of £100,000 have this reduced to £85,000 with effect from 1 July 2007 and then to £77,500 with effect from 1 September 2007.
• The Mintel report warns that Gala’s withdrawal from the National Game could lead to the break up of the National Game, with potentially devestating consequences for smaller bingo operators.
• The report predicts that online bingo and mobile bingo looks to have the greatest opportunities in the sector, at the expense of the existing incumbents who have major issues in terms of the age and social grouping of their player databases.
• The report suggests smaller and medium sized operators may soon be forced to merge or make strategic alliances in order to maintain their postion in the UK market.

The highly detailed 78 page report is a great introduction to the UK bingo industry for those who are not already involved and looking for a swift guide to the complexities and economics of a fast changing sector.

Bingo UK 2009 is available from Mintel priced £1500 – further information or purchase of the report available from Mintel.

Eunice Smith said it was the most she had ever won and she felt wonderful.

She told the Redditch Advertiser: “I feel wonderful. When I won it I was told that I was really calm but I just don’t think I took it in. I’ve been playing bingo for many years but I’ve never won as much as this.

“When I arrived at the club I said to my friends: ‘I’m going to win High 5 today because my stars say I’m going to be cash rich.” But I didn’t really think I would. I’m keeping a copy of my horoscope for that week.

“My husband and I have three children and seven grandchildren so they will all get a little treat. But most of it will be put to one side – it will be nice to know that our family doesn’t have to worry about us anymore.”

The Birmingham Great Park bingo hall‘s learning and recruitment officer Adam Mohammed said: “At first Mrs Smith didn’t realise she had won the High 5, so we explained to her just how much she’d won.

“The whole hall erupted when the call went out. Everyone was so pleased because she is a regular and comes here every week without fail.”

The Most Haunted star downed champagne with five friends ahead of renewing her vows with husband Karl Beattie later this year.

The 40 year old ex Blue Peter presenter was at Mecca Bingo in the Phoenix Leisure Park Club on Dunwoody Way, Crewe.

Club manager Gill Clark told the Crewe Chronicle: “We were thrilled when we realised we had a TV celebrity in our midst, especially one who was celebrating her hen party at the club.

“Yvette and her friends were all really lovely and it looked like they had a fantastic time. We regularly get hen parties coming in to celebrate at the club. However, we’ve never had any one as well known as Yvette.

“It just goes to show that Mecca is so much more than bingo. people can come along to our clubs with a group of friends, socialise and enjoy great food and drink as well as enjoy all the excitement that comes with playing bingo.”

Simon Wykes, who was responsible for Rank Group’s 103 UK bingo clubs, has left with immediate effect; Rank’s chief executive Ian Burke has taken over operational management of the business until a new managing director is recruited.

In a statement to the Stock Exchange, Ian Burke said: “Simon has worked hard to stabilise Mecca Bingo during a period in which the industry has had to adapt to the effects of the smoking ban, the loss of Section 21 gaming machines and rising taxation. We have entered a new phase in our strategy, as we look to move beyond stabilisation to rebuilding Mecca Bingo’s profits. On behalf of the board I would like to thank Simon for his hard work and to wish him well for the future.”

A company insider told Bingo News: “There was a feeling that Simon Wykes was not the man to grow the business in the long-term and that a new face was needed. Now the business is not in freefall there is a different skill set required and the management team felt it was best if there was a change at the top.”

Three men carrying hammers and knives robbed bingo players of cash and handbags at the Cascade bingo hall on Old Portadown Road in Lurgan.

Four handbags were taken before the thieves escaped in a dark saloon car at around 8.30 pm, police said.

One robber wore a balaclava while another wore gloves to seize the cash. Police appealed for information from the public about the robbery.

13 staff will almost certainly lose their jobs from the closure and local players will be hit hard as there is no bingo hall for miles. The nearest bingo halls are in Peterborough, Bury St Edmunds, Harlow or Bedford.

The premises has been sold to a local property developer.

The bingo hall has been running since 1972 when it was converted from the former Central Cinema. It is understood declining attendances, mainly related to the smoking ban, have hit the club hard.

A Gala Bingo spokeswoman told the Cambridge Evening News: “We hope to find jobs within the company for the 12 staff and manager. It is an old style casino and it has now been sold to a property developer. We will be able to give more details in the days to come.”

The Cambridge bingo hall has seen some big wins in its history; in 2007 a pensioner won £10,000 and a 81-year-old woman from Cherry Hinton won the national bingo prize. In 2003, an 82-year-old from Cambridge won the national prize of £200,000 at the bingo hall.

Players from Cambridge looking to play bingo can play online at Cambridge Bingo.

Top Ten Holdings plc said the company “continued to be in breach of its banking covenants and, given its level of bank borrowings and the current economic environment, it is unlikely to be able to meet all its existing covenants for the foreseeable future.”

The stock market delisting will give the bingo company a great deal more flexibility for restructuring their business but will be a bitter blow to investors. Shares have fallen in five years from 120 pence to a low yesterday of 0.5 pence.

The land-based bingo operator has 36 bingo clubs across the UK. On April 26 Top Ten Bingo will close its club in Fleetwood, Lancashire and Bingo News understands that other clubs in the group are being closely looked at to assess their financial viability.

Top Ten has an online bingo operation which is run under a white label agreement with 888 Holdings, owners of 888Ladies and supplier of Globalcom software, who run Foxy Bingo, Wink Bingo and Think Bingo.

The full company statement read: “In the Company’s Interim Results Statement for the six months ended 30 September 2008 (which were announced on 21 November 2008) the Company disclosed that it had breached one of its banking covenants in June 2008 and had breached two covenants in September 2008 but was holding constructive discussions with its bankers. Since 21 November 2008, the Company has continued to be in breach of its banking covenants and, given its level of bank borrowings and the current economic environment, it is unlikely to be able to meet all its existing covenants for the foreseeable future.

Top Ten has agreed in principle with its bankers new facilities which will enable the Company to continue to trade. The terms of the new facilities will result in the bank receiving a substantial proportion of any eventual increase in the value of Top Ten over and above the amount of its current bank borrowings of £30 million (as at 31 March 2009).

In order to save costs, the Company, in conjunction with a number of other initiatives, is planning to cancel the trading of its shares on AIM.

A further announcement will be made in due course. Assuming that the negotiations with the bank are finalised a circular will be sent to shareholders seeking their consent (as required by the AIM Rules) for the cancellation of the trading of its shares on AIM; setting out further details of the arrangements with the bank; and describing what, if any, alternative share dealing arrangements the Company has made.”

The backers of the bingo venture have bought an 11 year lease on the venue and have applied to Mendip District Council for a licence. It is expected they will be granted a licence later this month.  The local police and town council say they have no objection to a club opening.

Kingsway Bingo club is likely to be opened six nights a week and three afternoon per week and will create 10 new jobs in the Somerset town.

The premises will be able to hold up to 300 people. The investors behind the business said they believed that Frome residents were keen to play bingo and that they simply lacked a suitable venue for playing the game.