Too little too late, is the message which is going back to the British Government, which plans to help the UK bingo industry this week with extra payout machines. It is widely expected that the £500 jackpots on Category B3 machines will be doubled.

As long ago as last February, Gerry Sutcliffe, the minister with responsibility for gambling, went on record as promising to help the industry, which was struggling with the smoking ban, a reduction in machines and double taxation. In the 11 months since then, 27 more clubs have closed, reducing the total number of UK bingo clubs in Britain to 590.

Seven months ago the Government said it was considering doubling the permitted number of the £1 stake B3 machines per club from four to eight. The subject was debated yesterday by an all-party committee.

The industry believes that more machines and higher prizes are not enough to revive the industry and protect the 17,000 jobs in bingo. In a circular letter to 200 MPs from operator Rank, chief executive Ian Burke said: "This has been a frustrating year for our industry. The Treasury has closed its eyes to the damaged caused by the continuing discrimination against UK bingo clubs and has refused to engage in any meaningful dialogue." He said that the DCMS - the UK ministry in charge of gambling - had 'dithered' over measures to help the industry. His company runs just over 100 uk bingo clubs.

Operators pay double taxation, both the 15 per cent gaming duty and the new 15 per cent level of VAT. But other forms of gambling, including betting shops and casinos, pay no VAT.

Compiled with the problem that bingo has found a new audience via online bingo sites that may have detracted bingo players away from going to more expensive bingo halls.

Popular online bingo sites like 888 Ladies, Wink Bingo and Foxy Bingo offer free games, big prizes and lively online bingo communities which the UK Bingo clubs just can't compete with.

A woman described herself as ‘gutted’ after she won £5,000 playing bingo at a popular UK Bingo Club - because she thought she had won £250,000.

Louise Payton was playing at the Bilston Mecca Bingo club when she hit what she thought was the regional jackpot. She only learned the following day it was a national jackpot and had been shared between multiple winners at different clubs.
Mrs Payton, 30, who lives at Clare Crescent, Wolverhampton, told the Wolverhampton Express and Star: “The staff told us it was a regional only final and they told me I’d won a lot of money. I was very disappointed to find out I’d won a lot less.”

She said she had already planned a trip to Disneyland with her two young daughters before learning that her win was much lower than she expected.
two young daughters after she called house on the draw on December 21.

But on Monday she received a phone call to say that there were several winners and that she would receive just over £5,000.

Mrs Payton said: “The staff told us it was a regional only final and they told me I’d won a lot of money. I was very disappointed to find out I’d won a lot less.” General manager Natalie Smith, from Mecca Bingo, confirmed Mrs Payton was playing a national game, rather than regional

Still a bet alot of you in the bingo community would be chuffed with five grand right now - I know I would!

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A survey of social changes in Britain in the last decade states that  the amount of gambling in Britain is now stupendous; that we have become a nation of debtors; that there is a basic discontent with what has become very strongly an era of materialism which expresses itself "in a grasping after unearned wealth"; and that the number of married women at work has achieved a "housewives' revolution."

This financial independence and the easy access to online bingo communities has given many women an outlet to their urges to gamble without having to go into a seedy casino or bingo club full of there local community.

In fact even the massive marketing drive to "make over" the image of UK Bingo Clubs was just before the big online bingo boom promoting a much more acceptable way to gamble online

The report [says on gambling]: "the amount of money staked does emphasise the extent of the fever." The estimated turnover in 1961 on all forms of gambling was £762 million - nearly £14 per head of population.

The report is a contrast between conditions revealed in the census of 1951 and in that of 1961. [It] forecasts that the main population developments, even to such factors as early marriage and early birth of the first child, will continue.

"More people will want to move into an outer suburban life, buy cars, educate their children longer, suffer their surgical illnesses in private rooms of hospitals, spend evenings staring at television, spend more, gamble more (such as online poker and online bingo, buy more washing machines on hire purchase, take holidays in Italy, lay their own parquet floors, and so on.

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Rank Group, the parent company of Mecca Bingo, has received a £59.1 million VAT refund to cover overpayments on interval bingo.

Between January 2003 and June 2008 HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) ruled that sales of interval bingo tickets should attract VATl interval bingo is played by individual players at their seats between the main sessions in real world bingo halls. Rank appealed against the imposition of VAT and initial judgement at a VAT and Duties Tribunal ruling in May 2008 said they were entitled to the refund.

However HRMC will be appealing the decision early next year and, if they are successful, Rank will have to hand the money back plus interest.

Rank said it would use the cash in the short term to reduce its net debt and that it would not recognise the amount in the company’s profit and loss in this year’s accounts because of the possibility it would have to be repaid.

There have been mounting claims over the past few months for the government to reconsider its current tax whammy on bingo clubs. Under the current regime, bingo club revenues are subject to both VAT at 17.5% and gross profits tax at 15%. There has been strong evidence to support the claims that this double-tax sting is a major contributor for the closure of over 100 uk bingo clubs in the past year alone.

Stewart Hosie MP said, “Licensed bingo remains the only gambling product subject to double taxation, which results in an effective tax rate of 28.2 per cent compared with 15 per cent for most other gambling products … Bingo halls provide a safe and friendly environment for the whole bingo community but especially older people to meet and socialise.”

It does seem strange that bricks and mortar bingo halls have to be subjected to these extraordinary high taxes. The government want to help communities not strain things further by closing down meeting areas such as bingo halls. Perhaps we need to start dishing out bingo cards to those that sit down at Parliament so they can see how much fun playing bingo games can be.

The growth of online bingo has resulted in a drop in numbers of bingo players playing at UK Bingo Clubs. Whilst the gambling industry continues to grow both in popularity and profits so all of us here at LivetheDreamBingo support the bingo community in calling for tax breaks for UK Bingo Clubs.

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