Gala Bingo Leaves the Bingo Association

Gala Bingo has been recently features in the news for their shocker that they were leaving the National Bingo Game to go it alone. Now they have announced that they are leaving the live bingo trading association in the UK. The Bingo association! This will mean that Gala Bingo becomes an independent operator in their land based bingo clubs.

The Bingo Association controls 75% of UK land based bingo clubs even with the loss of Gala Bingo, but they will certainly falter with the loss of such a big brand name. Since the announcement of Gala Bingo to leave, the Association has issued a statement saying that they are still representative of the industry and will continue to provide a "cohesive voice for bingo". What the breakaway of Gala Bingo essentially means is that they are funding winnings for their own players instead of for across the board brand in the UK.

Gala has enjoyed some headlines recently with their successes in their Breast Cancer fund raising and as a result of a huge jackpot win that was shared by and entire club in the High 5 Game.

But the breakaway from the National Bingo Association can't help but make me wonder if Gala Bingo thinks that the Association has not done enough to aid the plight of land based bingo clubs in the UK. They have a huge power base (or had), but seem to be ineffectual when it comes to the problems being experienced by UK bingo clubs.