The site, which only finished 18th in the awards in 2008, beat off Mecca Bingo, who finished second, and Wink Bingo in third place. Tombola Bingo finished fourth and Bingo Playground finished fifth. What was most suprising was to see Crown Bingo finish 12th and Foxy Bingo finish 17th, suggesting that the company’s management teams did not put the same effort into a high finish as in previous years. Gala Bingo’s 21st place was also suprisingly low for a site that until three years ago was the dominant presence in UK online bingo. The total absensce of William Hill Bingo and Paddy Power Bingo, both of whom have huge bingo sites, is also somewhat suprising.

In the New Bingo Site of the Year award Golden Hat Bingo saw off Giggle Bingo and Landmark Bingo. Cheeky Bingo and Costa Bingo were third and fourth respectively.

Ruairi Boyle, Head of Games & Bingo at Ladbrokes Bingo welcomed the award, saying: “It’s the most prestigious Award in online Bingo and we’re thrilled to win it. We want to share this success with all our roomies who voted for us and helped us to the top of the Bingo pile. We’re already looking to 2010 to retain our title. New players, exciting innovations for existing roomies and more promotions, games and jackpots than anyone else are all in our sights. But right now we’re in the mood to party and 31 January will be a great day for everyone in Bingo.” Ladbrokes Bingo will offer free bingo to all their players on 31 January.

The top 30 finishers in the UK award were:

1 Ladbrokes Bingo
2 Mecca Bingo
3 Wink Bingo
4 Tombola Bingo
5 Bingo Playground
6 Golden Hat Bingo
7 Giggle Bingo
8 Betfred Bingo
9 Posh Bingo
10 Gone Bingo
11 Totesport Bingo
12 Crown Bingo
13 Harry’s Bingo
14 Jackpot Joy
15 CyberBingo.co.uk
16 Landmark Bingo
17 Foxy Bingo
18 House of Bingo
19 Costa Bingo
20 BingoSKY
21 Gala Bingo Online
22 FreeBingo.co.uk
23 Play2Win Bingo
24 Cheeky Bingo
25 888ladies
26 Bingo MagiX
27 Bingos.co.uk
28 BingoLiner UK
29 Platinum Play Bingo
30 Snap Bingo

New Bingo Site of the Year 2010
1 Golden Hat Bingo
2 Giggle Bingo
3 Landmark Bingo
4 Cheeky Bingo
5 Costa Bingo
6 Betfred Bingo
7 Moon Bingo
8 Eat Sleep Bingo
9 JackpotCity Bingo
10 Foxy Zero
11 Totesport Bingo
12 BOGOF Bingo
13 Play2Win Bingo
14 Tea Time Bingo
15 Epic Bingo
16 Kiss My Bingo
17 LiveBingo.co.uk
18 OK! Mag Bingo
19 Bloke Bingo
20 Eyes Down Bingo
21 Bingo Nation
22 3am Bingo
23 BingoG

If you’re wondering what site you’re going to play bingo on now then we have no problems recommending Love Bingo which is also on the St Minver network (and therefore you will have no trouble adjusting!).  Take a look at our 43/50 review here.

Leigh Nissim, Commercial Director of GTECH G2, the parent company of St Minver, told Bingo News: “The closure of Ann Summers bingo was amicable and for understandable reasons – they wanted to focus their efforts and resources on their core business. We’ve very much left the door open to work together again in the future.”

Your biggest worry of course is any money you have left in your Ann Summers Bingo account.  Ann Summers have emailed all of their users with instructions on what to do if you have money in your account. If you do want to speak with someone direct though or have any other inquiries you can call them direct on 0800 376 5619 (Freephone) or email them at support@bingoresponse.com.

At Bingo News we are wondering if this is the start of things to come, will other bingo sites suffer the same fate?  Is it just the credit crunch taking bite or have people started to move onto other things than online bingo?  We certainly hope not!

St Minver’s in-house brand Chit Chat Bingo will start accepting PayPal deposits this week with other St Minver sites such as Love Bingo, Littlewoods Bingo, Yahoo Bingo and Bingo Joy getting the service in August.

The announcement is one of the first major indicatons of the effect of St Minver being bought by GTech, the leading player in lottery operations worldwide.

Online bingo sites in the UK have struggled to add PayPal as a deposit method as the company, owned by eBay, has shunned all but the biggest gaming companies. Clearly GTech’s huge global scale has impressed PayPal enough to put a deal together very rapidly.

GTech has been aggressively growing its position in the online gaming market through its G2 subsidiary, which consists of Boss Media, Finsoft, St Minver and Dynamite Idea.

Johan Berg, Chief Operating Officer of GTech G2, said: “We are very excited about being able to offer our UK bingo partners the comfort, ease and security that comes with using the PayPal service.

“This is a great opportunity for us as our worldwide lottery and gaming industry expertise is now coupled with the world’s leading e-wallet solution in PayPal. We are always looking at ways to serve our bingo licensees better and this latest deal will further enhance our already very high level of core capabilities in this high-growth area.”

PayPal has 23 million customers in the UK and is very popular with online bingo players who use the service largely for their eBay purchases.

G2 now consists of St Minver, poker and casino software company Boss Media, sports betting software provider FinSoft and online games studio Dynamite Idea.

GTech announced the re-branding of G2 at the European Lotteries Congress today in Istanbul, Turkey.

“Igaming and sports betting are areas where we see tremendous growth for lotteries around the world,” said G2 President Atul Bali. “Our worldwide lottery and gaming industry experience, coupled with our recent strategic acquisitions, uniquely position us to lead the industry in these rapidly-growing gaming segments.

“G2 is an integrated market-focused organization that can offer our lottery customers igaming and betting products to facilitate growth in every aspect of the value chain today.”

GTech’s President and CEO, Jaymin B. Patel, said: “GTECH has been working closely with its customers and customizing and delivering world-class interactive solutions for them for more than a decade. Working with lotteries such as Veikkaus Oy, Camelot, New Zealand Lotteries, An Post National Lottery, and Loterie Nationale in Luxembourg, we have built tremendous experience and capabilities in the interactive gaming space.

“We are always investing in the future of our lottery customers, and with the acquisitions of Boss Media, Finsoft, St Minver, and Dynamite Idea, we have further enhanced our core capabilities in this high-growth area through the integration of new products, services, and content. We are fully prepared to assist our customers as regulations allow and opportunities present themselves in digital gaming.”

St Minver runs bingo sites including in-house brand Chit Chat Bingo, Love Bingo and Littlewoods Bingo.

Sharon’s Bingo launched today and is the second UK-facing celebrity-led bingo site, following in the footsteps of Keith Chegwin’s Cheggers Bingo.

The Gala Bingo powered site will be familiar to Gala Bingo players but has some new features, including a Sharon Osbourne branded scratch card. All the games and rooms are named after aspects of Sharon’s life, such as Kelly, Jack and Bel Air, Los Angeles.

Sharon Osbourne said: “I’m so excited to have my very own bingo site. I think players will find sharonsbingo.com great fun. There are great opportunities for players to win – it’s just fabulous! It’s been created with my fans in mind, which players will hopefully love. I’ve already got some friends on board and I’m really looking forward to welcoming other people to the site.”

Clive Cottrell, head of marketing of Gala Coral Group’s Remote Gambling Division, said: “We’re delighted that Sharon Osbourne has decided to extend her relationship with us by launching her own bingo website. Sharon has proved immensely popular with our customers over the past two years so it seems a natural progression for her to have a dedicated website.”

He added: “While galabingo.com remains the UK’s leading gaming site with over five million members, sharonsbingo.com offers our customers a greater choice of places to play online bingo in a secure environment. From the initial feedback we’re confident that the website will be very popular.”

Interesting it is Gala Coral who have retained the trademark for Sharon’s Bingo, suggesting they could keep running the site even if Sharon Osbourne stopped endorsing it.

UKash take cash payments at over 275,000 outlets worldwide and players can then state where they would like their money to be uploaded to fund their online accounts.

UKash’s list of bingo sites suggests they have signed deals with St Minver, Virtue Fusion and Party Gaming.

Online bingo sites that accept UKash deposits:

Gone Bingo

Crown Bingo

Astro Bingo

JackpotCityBingo

Bingo Palace

Cyberbingo

Bingos.com

Bingozest

Baraka Bingo

Bucky Bingo

Take a Break Bingo

Bingo Day

Bingo Liner

Bingo Mania

Blackpool Bingo

Daily Express Bingo

Desperate Wives Bingo

Digital Bingo

Elgranbingo

Emmerdale Bingo

Ibingo

ITV Bingo

Magic FM Bingo

Mecca Bingo

Party Bingo

Purely Bingo

Rehabbingo

Ruby Bingo

BingoJoy

Bingo Loopy

Bingonanza

Butlins Bingo

Carlton Bingo

ChitChatBingo

Littlewoods Bingo

Yahoo Bingo

Winbonanza

321 Bingo

Capitol Bingo

Castle Bingo

Cheggers Bingo

Crazy Bingo

Paid exhibitors listed by CAP Euro are:

Party Bingo

Ladbrokes Bingo

Income Access Bingo Partners (Bingo.com, Tombola, Bunny Bingo, Bingo Fun, Big Bingo)

Virgin Bingo

Maria Bingo

Bingos.com

William Hill Bingo

The Gaming Network/Bingo Affiliates (Astro Bingo, Bingonanza, Bingo Boogie and Bingo Mania)

We also know there will be representatives of the following companies at the conference:

Crown Bingo

Love Bingo

Bingo Suerte

Event Bingo

Paddy Power Bingo

Scot Bingo

Bingo panellists are in short supply among the speakers at the CAP Euro conference.

Roo Wright from Live Bingo sneaks on the SEO panel while Simon Burrige of Virgin Games is on the CEO panel and with a bit of luck will mention Virgin Bingo.

There will of course be online bingo companies represented in the CAP Awards in the voting for the best bingo affiliate programme.

If you know of any other bingo companies represented at CAP, whether formally or informally, let us know and we’ll add to the list.

Players on St Minver sites between 10.00am and 10.35am on St Minver’s UK facing bingo sites got paid out up to £11,000 for hitting a single line. The game they were playing was low stakes and had a correct full house payoff of around £25.

St Minver’s technical team discovered the error almost immediately and all bingo play was suspended at 11am. Players who had ‘won’ had their accounts suspended and were emailed to explain that the payment had been a technical error.

Sites affected included Love Bingo, Virgin Bingo, Littlewoods Bingo, Mail Bingo, Yahoo Bingo and St Minver’s in-house site Chit Chat Bingo.

One player who contacted Bingo News said: “It seemed a bit good to be true but I was just hoping it was a New Year’s bonus. I got an email within the hour explaining it has been a technical error and saying they would put £50 in my account as compensation. I guess that’s better than nothing but I was suprised such a major error could happen.”

Bingo News contacted various St Minver licensees, many of whom had not been told about the jackpot error nearly a week after it occurred. One site manager said: “I’m not exactly thrilled that I am hearing about this from you rather than St Minver. It doesn’t look good and it has a negative effect on our brand. It is something we will be taking up with them at our next client meeting.”

In the new site of the year award Bingo Playground took top spot, followed by Tombola Bingo and Wink Bingo.

The votes were something of a surprise as Platinum Play Bingo was a new site in 2008 and they must have worked very hard to get all their players and friends voting for them. By contrast Jackpot Joy is a huge site and has thousands of players every day. Crown Bingo, who finished third last year as well, continues to build on its reputation as being the friendliest online bingo site in the UK.

Top 98 bingo sites in the UK, according to Which Bingo:

1 Jackpot Joy
2 Platinum Play Bingo
3 Crown Bingo
4 Bingo Liner (UK)
5 Sun Bingo
6 Tombola Bingo
7 Bingo Playground
8 House Of Bingo
9 Gone Bingo UK
10 Foxy Bingo
11 Bingo MagiX
12 Free Bingo.co.uk
13 Rehab Bingo
14 Wink Bingo
15 Gala Bingo
16 Harry’s Bingo
17 All Bingo Club
18 Ladbrokes Bingo
19 Mecca Bingo
20 888Ladies
21 King Jackpot UK
22 Bingo.com
23 BingoSKY.co.uk
24 Paddy Power Bingo
25 Game Village
26 Think Bingo
27 Blackpool Club Bingo
28 Cyber Bingo
29 Bingo Cafe
30 Wow Bingo
31 Daily Express Bingo
32 Butlins Bingo
33 Bet365 Bingo
34 32Red Bingo
35 Betfred Bingo
36 Mirror Bingo
37 Bingo Zest
38 King.com
39 Jackpot City Bingo
40 Bingo Palace
41 Carlton Bingo
42 Bingo Scotland
43 Virgin Bingo
44 Sky Bingo
45 Best Bingo
46 Blackpool Bingo
47 321Bingo
48 Chit Chat Bingo
49 Moon Bingo
50 Think Bingo Cosy
51 Bingo Joy
52 William Hill Bingo
53 Daily Record Bingo
54 Dream Bingo
55 Astro Bingo UK
56 Bucky Bingo
57 Bingo Wags
58 Betsson
59 Love Bingo
60 Desperate Housewives Bingo
61 Bingo On The Box
62 Simply Bingo
63 ITV Bingo
64 Bingo Britain
65 We Luv Bingo
66 Bingos UK
67 Love it! Bingo
68 Winzingo
69 Kingsway Bingo
70 The Palaces Bingo
71 Yahoo Bingo
72 STV Bingo
73 BingoBallroom
74 UK-Bingo.net
75 Premier Bingo
76 Riva Bingo
77 BingoRooms
78 Loquax Bingo
79 Bingolore
80 BingoFriends
81 Jackpot Bingo
82 Bingo Jetset
83 Kiss My Bingo
84 News of the World Bingo
85 Yours Bingo
86 Fruit Bingo
87 BingoDay UK
88 BingoFun
89 Party Bingo
90 Riverbelle Bingo
91 BingoMania UK
92 Palace Bingo
93 abcBingo
94 Take A Break Bingo
95 BellaBingo
96 Bingo Chest
97 Closer Bingo
98 Purely Bingo

Which Bingo UK Site of the Year website

St Minver is a bingo network operator who use Parlay Entertainment’s bingo software. They power some of the UK and Europe’s best known bingo brands.

St Minver was bought by US gaming group GTech in April 2008 for an initial consideration of €28 million plus up to €13.6 million extra, depending on the performance of the business in 2008 and 2009. St Minver is being incorporated into GTech’s Lottomatica business alongside sports betting software company Finsoft and poker and casino software specialists Boss Media. The deal was negotiated by Jim Ryan who has subsequently left St Minver to become chief executive of Party Gaming, operators of Party Bingo.

St Minver have a Gibraltar gaming licence and have offices in Gibraltar and London.

St Minver effectively own and operate Chit Chat Bingo. While technically they have it set up as a white label operation, the vast majority of the revenues accrue to St Minver and there is an in-house employee, Matt Sunderland, who runs the site for them on a day-to-day basis. Chit Chat Bingo is also responsible for a large percentage of St Minver’s profits.

In the UK, St Minver is run by Leigh Nissim, a well known figure in the online bingo industry and famed for his relentless promotion of St Minver. Nissim has been known to make some of the more outrageous claims about St Minver’s market share in the online bingo market, including at the fourth Annual Bingo Summit when he claimed they had more than one-third of the UK market. Most people would agree that figure was inaccurate.

St Minver recently axed many of their smaller white labels for financial underperformance.

UK Facing Online Bingo Sites

Littlewoods Bingo

Virgin Bingo

Love Bingo

Chit Chat Bingo

Mail Bingo (also known as Coffee Break Bingo)

Castle Bingo

Ann Summers Bingo

Yahoo Bingo

European Facing Online Bingo Sites

Bingo Suerte

Bingo Genial

Hygge Bingo

Svea Bingo

Caliber Bingo

Juego Bingo Ya

Hispavista

Best Bingo

The deal, which was announced this morning, will mean that leading bingo sites like Love Bingo, Virgin Bingo, Yahoo Bingo and Littlewoods Bingo will get a whole load of new casino and slot games, including Wheel of Fortune Hollywood Edition, Cleopatra, Cluedo and Monopoly Pass Go Bonus.

Oliver Lofthouse, Director and General Manager of IGT-UK Gaming and WagerWorks, said, “The provision of these premium branded titles to St Minver enables WagerWorks games to be enjoyed by even more online players. Developing a business relationship with such a high profile client reiterates the quality of WagerWorks branded games and their appeal to all levels of player.”

Leigh Nissim, Commercial Director of St Minver, said the deal was an exciting one for his company: “This is an exciting opportunity for both our players and partners alike. We have significantly enhanced our bingo and casino games over the last 12 months and expect the introduction of branded content to further improve player entertainment value whilst differentiating our gaming solutions for partners in the European market.”

St Minver was recently bought by American gaming giant GTech and is currently being integrated into an online division with sports betting platform FinSoft and casino and poker software company Boss Media.

Bingo industry rumours suggest that Virgin Bingo are considering leaving the St Minver platform and have held talks with several rival bingo software providers.

One analyst who spoke to Bingo News said: “This was a much needed deal for St Minver as the performance of their own slot and casino games was pretty shocking by industry standards. The lifetime values of their bingo players was relatively low because they were unable to get decent casino and side game revenues out of their active player base. The WagerWorks games should address this problem and should increase their profitability markedly, even with the increased revenue shares they will be paying for the premium content. What no one in the industry understands is why they didn’t do this sort of deal 12 to 18 months ago.”

Profits grew thanks to new product offerings and signing new customers, as well as the strength of the US dollar, the company said.

Earnings for the first nine months of 2008 totalled $1,050,524 on revenues of $7,158,118.

Parlay provides bingo and interactive television software to the St Minver Network and to Unibet, Stan James and Irish boomakers Paddy Power. They also claim to own the patent for multi player online bingo in Canada and the United States, although their competitors in the online bingo industry would argue about how sustainable that patent is.

Chief executive officer Scott White said: “We remain committed to increasing our cash reserves through revenue growth from existing and new customers as well as from new product and service offerings and software licensing fees. We have a number of new customers who are in various stages of advancing their Internet bingo offerings and we anticipate these new customer launches to contribute to revenue commencing in Q1 2009. Our quarter just passed also included significant foreign exchange expense reflecting the remarkable strength of our reporting currency against each of sterling, the Euro and the Canadian dollar.”

“We are also beginning to see,” continued Mr. White, “the results of various restructuring initiatives which we commenced in Q2 2008 and which we have expanded. We anticipate that the full benefit of these adjustments will fully impact our cost structure in Q1 2009.”

Parlay’s share price stands at 40 cents, valuing the company at just over $5 million. The company was the subject of a bid by PEIC Aquisition Corp, a vehicle led by online gambling pioneer Mark Blandford. PEIC pulled out of the bidding in March 2008 after two more parties became involved in the potential sale, only for the remaining bidders to also pull out.

In June 2008 Parlay sold all their US facing assets for $2.8 million but any future buyer would potentially risk taking on the past liability of the company accepting bets from US citizens.

Doubts also surround the company in terms of how long they are likely to hold on to the St Minver contract. St Minver was sold to American gaming giant GTech this summer and they already own their own bingo software through Boss Media. The loss of the St Minver contract, which includes brands such as Littlewoods Bingo, Virgin Bingo and Love Bingo, would be a major concern for Parlay.

The amusing ad was filmed last week and from what we’ve seen at Bingo News it is going to be a smash hit. The Cupid mascot is not exactly what you would imagine Cupid to look like – he’s middle aged and wearing a nappy! But the ad is great fun and made us laugh a lot. It’s a bit of a change from the usual boring online bingo ads featruing an actress looking excited in her living room.

Love Bingo managing director Stephen Hare told us: “We’ve gone for something totally different from the average bingo ad and we hope it’s going to make people laugh. We really wanted to get the message across that we love bingo and that we’ve got a site for people who love bingo too. We’ve shown it to a few of our current players and they agree that it really does reflect what the site is all about.”

Love Bingo runs on software supplied by St Minver Ltd, a Gibraltar based company that also powers Littlewoods Bingo, Chit Chat Bingo, Virgin Bingo and Ann Summers Bingo.