Top Ten Bingo currently employ approximately 820 people in the bingo industry and they have managed to preserve this number even though they have been undergoing a difficult period of re-organisation within their corporation over the past few years. As we know the smoking ban came into effect in Wales on 2nd April 2007 and this was followed shortly afterwards by England with the ban coming into effect here on 1st July 2007. It has been said that the smoking ban has had a much greater impact on England and Wales than was anticipated and this was based on an earlier experience from when the smoking ban came into effect in Scotland.

Gaming and bingo are normally one of the most resilient industries in the face of economic adversity but when you add up all the current conditions that they are facing at the moment, i.e. smoking ban, the absurd double taxation law, the removal of gaming machines and the increase on fuel and food prices it is no wonder that we have seen many land based bingo clubs close down over the past few years.

Tightening their belts is what I think it is called when land based bingo owners decide to close down their bingo clubs as they have to look at the best and worst performing clubs throughout the country and sacrifice some to keep their businesses afloat. During the year of 2006 to 2007 Top Ten Bingo disposed of three of their land based bingo clubs and this resulted in a profit from asset sales for them of £432,000. Morley, Heckmondwike and Wigston were all closed as it was determined that it would be cheaper than trying to continue operating them.

The group started to cut costs in well before this however from 2006 in anticipation of the smoking ban being implemented, but once it was clear that this ban was going to have a much larger impact on them than was first thought Top Ten Bingo embarked on a more aggressive cost reduction plan.

We know that various sectors of the bingo industry have lobbied the Chancellor to reduce the burden on bingo clubs by abolishing VAT on Bingo which would bring them back in line with the rest of the gaming world, but to date we have seen no move from the Government relating to this issue, it seems that they are happy to sit back and do next to nothing to help our land based bingo industry, which really is appalling.

Sir Aubrey Brocklebank, Chairman of Top Ten Bingo, had this to say about their company’s outlook – “Bingo has historically been robust during times of hardship. The only time that it has been seriously affected was at the introduction of the National Lottery. The combination of rapidly rising food and energy prices and the current economic environment has had a similar effect. The Group remains focussed on rebuilding its profitability to an acceptable level although in the current economic climate this may take several years.”

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