Mecca Bingo are certainly battling on against adversity and for once there seems to have been some good news on the horizon for the Rank Group. They have just reported that revenues are up and so are their shares after they hit an all time low of 52 pence last week. Our land based bingo clubs have took a battering over the past few years with the smoking ban coming into effect, the grossly unfair double taxation law and to top it all the change in the gambling act that see hundreds of gaming machines being removed from bingo halls up and down the UK.

Some leniency by the UK government regarding gaming machines has a bit of a knock on affect on the Rank Group as they were granted licenses for 83 adult gaming centres and 64 of these have already been implemented within their bingo halls.

Mecca Bingo may have seen a 5% drop in bingo players passing through their doors, but their like for like revenue grew by 2% and it is estimated that per head players are now spending 8% more than they used to. This in effect is how their revenues are up even though player numbers are lower. The Rank group as a whole have also been making some cost effective changes throughout their company and we have seen new food initiatives taking place in their land based bingo halls, like the introduction of Costa Coffee outlets inside their clubs.

The economy as we know is not in a pretty state at the moment and the Rank Group acknowledged that the economic outlook in the short term remains uncertain, but their long term long term outlook on growth and potential remained positive. The Rank group recently won a land mark victory against HM Revenue and Customs, when a tribunal ruled in their favour regarding duties and VAT that they paid on interval bingo. The benefit to their company is said to be in the region of £6 million pounds, but the HM Revenues and Customs service have appealed against this decision and this case is now expected to come before the high court in March 2009.

With so much turbulence taking place throughout the financial sectors over the past few weeks, this was good news coming out of the Mecca Bingo camp.