After many years in bingo I thought there would be very little that would surprise me about the industry. However in recent times the online bingo industry has done just that. It is no surprise that you struggle (unless you read our articles) to read anything negative about online bingo sites on the bingo portal and bingo news websites. They are all receiving revenues in the form of affiliate payments or advertising from the bingo operators themselves.

Over the last week this has had me thinking as to why we don’t see negative stories in the press or on TV about the industry, yes they receive sponsorship and advertising but surely they make money out of most industries don’t they? It seems when it comes to bingo that there is a conflict of interests when it comes to reporting such stories or incidents and a lack of competition as confusing as that may sound.

With the newspaper industry declining over recent years, and advertising revenues having also had an impact with the recession, publishers have resorted to paid content to improve their financial performance. Now given that it is a competitive industry you would think the media would be quick to print anything that was wrong with online gaming unless it compromised their own branded website but appears this is not the case and the reasons are quite simple.

While it would appear that there are hundreds of online bingo sites the reality is that there are only a handful of software providers and as such all the online bingo sites are just a different front cover of next site. In fact for those that don’t know, you join up on one bingo site and unless it is on a different software platform then you are still playing with the players on a competitors branded site as there are very few online bingo operators that run their own software platform. It is like having six different brands of motor car but hundreds of vehicles in different colours. And then to top it off with all the parties involved in running an online bingo site even if you are on a different software platform you still might use the same services as a company on another platform. It is quite easy to see therefore why any company that’s runs an online bingo site is somewhat reluctant to print anything negative about the industry.

How many times have you come across in the media articles relating to:

• Unfair terms and conditions associated with withdrawing funds from a bingo account?

• Winning players being blocked from an online site after winning a jackpot on bonus funds?

• Misleading advertising information?

• How ridiculous the taxation system is for online gaming?

• The lack of information given to players about how many players are taking part in a game and the REAL chances of actually winning?

• AND the latest one (which no one is interested in printing) the fact that 315,000 bingo players details from one of the top UK online bingo brands (including usernames and passwords, how much spent, registration date, how many times player, address, contact information) is being sold to anyone interested. To make it worse the company have known about this since March and have taken limited if no action to protect the customers. The ICO are carrying out a major investigation and consider it a serious matter yet no mention of it anywhere? Not read the story yet?

Let me know if you do so I can have look!!

Just consider how many times the media reported on the Sony incident earlier this month where player’s details were stolen following the company servers being hacked. Let’s not forget Sony proactively took action at their own expense to protect their customers yet they have still been slated by the media. It seems choosing what to print in the news these days is becoming somewhat complicated and difficult.