With the England team on its way home this morning, fans that travelled to South Africa will be disappointed and wondering why they bothered. As England came up against rivals Germany yesterday they were punished with their worst World Cup defeat.

While the German team was young and generally in experienced, their struggles in the group stages were soon forgotten as they thrashed England 4-1. On paper England looked the stronger team however, they made the German team look unstoppable in a game that could have quite easily seen Germany score a lot more.

It’s not hard to understand given our poor performance why woman would rather play bingo than watch the game. In fact the way we played this year many of the male supporters may have a different opinion in future years. A survey by one of the leading online bingo sites 888ladies.com found that 39 percent of ladies would rather play bingo than sit around watching the FIFA World Cup. A further 40 percent said they would watch the game while chasing the bingo jackpot. Only two percent of those surveyed said they would sit and just watch the competition which runs up until 11th July. Let us not forget however that 888ladies is highly geared towards female players and therefore the results do have limitations, in that sites that have more of a mix of players may show different views and secondly the results are based on a questionnaire aimed at bingo players in the first place.

So how much of an effect does the World Cup have on bingo?

In the past bingo clubs have generally found that the World Cup doesn’t have a significant effect on business levels. With the majority of the customers being females and females being generally less interested in the sport the impact is small. In addition while some bingo players may decide to play at their local club less frequently during the competition, their will be other bingo fans that choose to play more often to avoid the football games.

There does tend to be a minimal reduction in business in the months following the tournament and this can be seen for two reasons. Firstly many people may delay taking holidays or weekend trips until after the competition has finished and secondly families may find they have overspent during the period with extra nights out and parties with friends and as a result spend slightly less over the forthcoming months on entertainment.

While bingo clubs don’t feel the pinch as much as other forms of entertainment and retailers the online bingo industry has embraced the World Cup with open arms, with themed promotions to tie in with the event. In fact the risks faced by the online bingo sites are greater than that of bingo clubs. Many online sites are likely to be aware that something as seemingly trivial as a few days of good weather can result in a vast reduction in website traffic: with events such as the World Cup this effect is at risk of being emulated on a grander scale. People generally go on the internet in their spare time, if something else such as football is monopolising this spare time then they are likely to spend less time surfing the internet. Where they have no interest in football, online bingo fans may feel the need to escape from home where they live with football fans and hence not play online bingo less frequently.

In addition, while the effects have been shown to be minimal in bingo clubs online bingo operators will be aware that funds which may otherwise have been available for online purchases could well end up contributing to the cost of visiting a pub to watch football or even heading over to South Africa, whether or not it is the bingo player that is enjoying the football or their partner.

If England were to get to the finals or even better still win the competition the extended parties and leisure time would know doubt have an effect on both bingo clubs and the online bingo sites for all of the reasons above. However it is likely to be some time before we are able to measure such effects.

Is the World Cup really the biggest risk faced by Bingo Operators?

Well not really. A big factor to bingo clubs is extreme weather conditions. The hot weather will initially have an effect on bingo numbers as players take the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors and bbq conditions. After a few days the effects are reduced as bingo players start to miss their favourite game. The General Manager at the Ritz Bingo Club in Yorkshire, Alan Gamban commented: “The World Cup hasn’t really had an effect on the admissions; we did make our promotions more appealing to the female customers during this period which may have helped, but generally football competitions don’t have dramatic effects. The mix and habits of our players are a little different. The hot weather at the moment seems to have had a small effect but not as much as I expected at the moment”.

Clearly until England pick up their game and start doing well in the competition the true potential effects of the FIFA World Cup are uncertain.