Cashcade, Tombola make Bingo Operator of the Year final six

CASHCADE AND TOMBOLA have made it onto the shortlist of six for this year’s Bingo Operator of the Year category at the EGR Awards, seeing the two operators renew the rivalry that developed earlier this summer over just who was top of the UK bingo market.

As reported on EGRmagazine.com in July Foxy Bingo operator Cashcade pointed to data from portal BingoPort showing the operator hosted over 2,500 average daily concurrent users in the three months to 30 June 2009, representing around 23% of the UK market. Tombola countered by highlighting Hitwise data showing it was the most visited site in the UK, and BingoPort figures showing it had more paying players than Cashcade.

Cashcade has made the shortlist again following 12 months in which it increased its number of bingo networks to eight, including launching free bingo room Cheeky Bingo on the 888-owned Globalcom bingo network; and in which it spent more than £6m on offline campaigns including sponsorship of giant BBC charity event Red Nose Day. With the financial clout of new owner PartyGaming behind it, Cashcade is expected to roll out its bingo brands across continental Europe over the year ahead.

Tombola was shortlisted for the award, which will be presented at a gala dinner on the first night of the EGR Live conference and exhibition in London next month, after carving an impressive share of the UK market since launching as a customer-facing brand at the tail end of August 2008 following the end of its white-label contract with UK newspaper The Sun, now operated by Gamesys, also on this year’s shortlist.

A £5m multi-media advertising campaign combined with customer-focused innovations such as loyalty programmes Play-Mates and MyTombola, a cross between social networking sites Facebook and Twitter was also noted.

Jackpot Joy operator Gamesys was recognised for progress in the last 12 months through its white-label partnership with The Sun newspaper, with offline campaigns supported by the three million daily readers of the UK’s biggest selling daily. At Jackpot Joy, innovations such as low-cost bingo room the Emerald Room and new games such as Monopoly Snap have also helped the operator’s core bingo offering grow during the economic downturn, with the site on the cusp of signing up its three millionth member.

Also shortlisted for this year’s EGR Bingo Operator gong is Ladbrokes Bingo, which has increased its active players 6% year-on-year, and value per player by 42%. The period also saw the operator open its 90-ball bingo room up to five new languages: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish and Spanish.

Virtue Fusion-powered Ladbrokes also launched bingo game Aussie Rules bingo, a giant game of bingo taking place on a beach in Australia, off the back of its UK sponsorship of Australia-based daily soap opera Neighbours.

William Hill Bingo, also on the Virtue Fusion network, makes this year’s shortlist based on an increased above-the-line spend of more than £2.5m during 2008-09, helping it increase its share of the UK bingo wallet from 3-5% over the past 19 months, according to a second-quarter gaming industry survey by search marketing agency Greenlight.

A three-month partnership with Breast Cancer Care also raised more than £40,000 for the charity and opened the bingo site up to a new target demographic.

Relative newcomer Wink Bingo made the list after eyecatching promotions combined with high-profile sponsorships of popular peak-time ITV programmes including All Star Family Fortunes, The Cube and Harry Hill’s TV Burp. The site, which runs on the Globalcom network, now offers 20 regular and 19 special game rooms, compared to just four at the time of its launch in February 2008.

The winner of the award will be announced at the EGR Awards gala dinner, which takes place at London’s Old Billingsgate market on 30 November, the first night of EGR Live, eGaming Review‘s free-to-attend conference and exhibition at the same venue.