The Western world’s battle against smoking has gotten more intense than ever, since the public smoking ban in the UK.  At the time of the ban, it was estimated that 40 per cent of the three million bingo players in the country are smokers, which raised a lot of fear among bingo hall operators.  This is very understandable, because the potential losses in profit would be huge.  Attendance was not the only issue, because many of the bingo halls’ profits came from speed bingo games played during the intervals between bigger games.  Smoking patrons would be much less likely to participate in those speed games because they would now be outside, lighting up.

In February 2008, not long after the ban, it was reported that the number of bingo halls operated in the country had gone down from 644 in 2007 to 616, bringing it to the lowest in 10 years.  Unfortunately, the Government cannot realistically make bingo halls exempt from the ban because other entities negatively affected by the ban, such as pubs and members-only clubs, would petition for exemptions as well, defeating the purpose of this law in the first place.

Despite the negative effects of the smoking ban, the rise of online gambling is also a factor.  Even though a lot of bingo purists claim that online bingo strips away the element of social interaction from their favourite pastime, online bingo halls such as golden bingo offer players the ability to play whenever and wherever they want.  When they play bingo here, the smoking ban becomes irrelevant.

As well as looking forward to a romantic dinner with your loved one, which we all hope to do, why not fall in love with a card or two of online bingo at the market-leading bingo website 888Ladies, which has announced the launch of a new Valentine’s Day promotion. They offer its members the chance to pick up some cash prizes and bonus loyalty points. The event takes place on February 11th and 12th in the Studio 75 and Glam & Gorgeous rooms.

Some of the romantic offerings include a very naughty but oh-so-nice time at their Angels and Devils Chat Party! You will find not one, but two hot dates planned with your cheeky chat hosts. Lots of extra loyalty bonus points on offer, plus a whole weekend of ever so tempting treats including cash, bingo money, and double loyalty bonus points added to tons of other goodies! Don’t forget that new bingo lovers to site can treble their first deposit, which is the most generous welcome package that you will find at any online bingo site in the world. Look forward to seeing you at 888Ladies.

If you’re a bingo fan then be sure to check out William Hill before the 4th February. They are giving away a £5,000 jackpot every day in the community room. Every day of the week they will be giving away at least a juicy £5,000 at William Hill Bingo. All you have to do is to access the bingo room, is call bingo on 38 numbers before 5pm to win the jackpot, if the jackpot isn’t won they will increase the number of calls by 2 per hour until the jackpot is won. When someone finally wins the jackpot they take home £2,500 whilst the remainder of the players with tickets in the game will share the other half.

There’s more to come at William Hill, Passoker the in-play betting product, have just signed a supply deal with William Hill Online. Passoker will go live on William Hill next month with their unique product which combines elements of card games with in-play betting.

If you want to be amongst the big bingo winners you should join the ever popular bingo room 888Ladies.com which is proving to be not just a fab fun site which a really chatty online chat room, but one which see the best prizes too. Only last week it revealed that it saw 888ladies’ members win more than £707k.

Bingo fans could be tempted to join 888ladies, the market leading portal, after it published yesterday’s (January 17th) winning figures. Figures published on the website shown that for just one day alone it paid out a total of £707,156.50 in just 24 hours. Examples of some of the winnings include: scorpio4563, who pocketed £15,638.19, djalanc, who scooped £13,626. 80 and WHITFORDKIDS, who added £11,889.78 to their bingo balance. That’s not all o f course as the 888Ladies bonuses for new players is the tops, with a generous 200 per cent welcome bonus and free £5 credit to all newcomers.

The Scottish mum who won the world’s biggest bingo jackpot is facing the threat of bankruptcy. Former cleaner Soraya Lowell is struggling with debts, less than four years after winning nearly £1.2million. The local council have instigated proceedings to have her declared bankrupt over her unpaid council tax bill. Lawyers for the council demanded that the 40-year-old mother of four and her husband Frankie be made bankrupt over debts of £13,214.

Soraya, of Hamilton, Lanarkshire, made national headlines in March 2008 when she won £1,167,795 on the national game at the Club 3000 bingo hall in Coatbridge. She had a long-standing agreement to split any winnings evenly with her pal and bingo partner, neighbour Agnes O’Neill. Tragically, Agnes, 68, died in bed two months after banking her share of the prize. Soraya and Frankie moved to a new home in Hamilton about a year after her win but are now back in their old council house after failing to pay the mortgage.

888.com in partnership with Endemol and Channel 5 has launched the latest in a long line of bingo sites, the newest based on Big Brother. The interactive online bingo site offers registered users the chance of winning Big Brother themed prizes and props from the set as well as special features such as behind the scenes information and chances to obtain VIP passes to eviction nights. The site is also offering a community hub where players can discuss Big Brother and take part in polls about the Channel 5 programme.

BigBrotherBingo.com follows other brands such as Deal or No Deal launching into the bingo world. The Big Brother bingo site has been launched to run alongside the current Celebrity series, which is airing on Channel 5. 888.com first teamed up with Endemol last year when they began using the company’s television brands to create bingo themed sites.

Bingo fans are always looking for the chance to play more games, and there is no better way to do this than by playing in a Bingo tournament. These tournaments are available on and offline, and can provide huge winnings. The tournaments are fairly simple. Instead of playing a single game, players will play a series of games. Through the tournament, players will collect points when they win games. The person with the most points at the end of the tournament is the winner.

Most online sites will offer Bingo tournaments, usually once a day. The higher paying tournaments are always held at the weekends, but daily events can increase bankrolls as well. Most tournaments will have an entry fee, but it is possible to win free entries through raffles or by redeeming loyalty points.

Playing offline tournaments is very exciting. There is always a fee to enter, and there are usually multiple cash prizes for the top ranked players. They are not as common as online tournaments however, and those interested in enjoying the action of a Bingo tournament should look first at the top Bingo sites available through goldenbingo.co.uk.

Lucky lady Janet A walked away with a juicy £16,211 for a 10p stake by playing the popular 75 ball bingo at an online bingo site. Janet, who won the record win, added that she was “shocked and surprised hoped that she would get a call and see herself in a trendy magazine!”

Unlike the traditional 90 ball game of bingo, in the 75 ball variation players have a 5×5 card and compete to mark off numbers in specific patters which can be different in each game. Players can play more than one card and if they miss any numbers the computer automatically marks off the numbers. So, if you are not already a player, now is the time to go to an online bingo site and join in the fun, you could be a winner too.

We all love our game of bingo and now online bingo is more popular that it has ever been, but our great game is helping in medical research too. Bingo, a popular activity in nursing homes, senior citizen afternoons and at sheltered elderly accommodation facilities, has benefits that extend well beyond socialising. Researchers found high-contrast large bingo cards, boost thinking and playing skills for people with cognitive difficulties and visual perception problems produced by Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD).

As people age, they begin to lose sensitivity to perceive contrasts. It is exacerbated in people with dementia. So what better way to help these people than with a game of bingo? When study participants played bingo on computer-generated cards that were manipulated for brightness, size and contrast, the researchers could compare the performance among the different age and health groups. With some contrast and size changes to the card, researchers reported improvement in performances. For those with mild dementia, they could perform at levels of their healthy peers. Little change was reported for people with more severe dementia.

The Hippodrome Bingo club in Bishop Auckland which has more than 10,000 members is hoping to reopen before Easter having been forced to close following a major water accident which destroyed the club. While the unprecedented accident has left local bingo players with nowhere to play their favourite game, the club management are looking forward to a grand re-opening and inviting members back to the club.

This is really great news for the Durham club which had feared that due to the tremendous damage to the building and bingo equipment it would not open again to bingo lovers. The bingo club has two levels and staff became aware sometime later prior to the club opening that water was running down the walls from the upper level. The water had built up within the structure and it wasn’t long before parts of the ceiling and walls started coming away The building was closed as insurance investigators were called in to the site which was drenched in dirty water. The building was declared as unsafe in its current state due the fact that parts of ceiling keep dropping and significant damage was done to the electrics.