Play Bingo On Facebook

Facebook is not only a place where you can chat with your friends, look at cat videos, and ghost people you used to go to school with. There's in fact countless bingo and slots apps available to add to your profile. These apps let you play your favourite games, meet new FB friends and shunt Farmville aside. The placement of these apps on Facebook is a bit of conundrum. On one hand Facebook list these apps but on another they close down business pages owned by bingo brands. One thing you won't find on Facebook are pay to play gambling apps. In 2012 the first pay to play game for real cash prizes was launched - Bingo Friendzy - in association with Jackpotjoy. This was followed by 888's version called Bingo Appy which was a kind of sister site to Wink Bingo. Although these platforms were hosted on Facebook, players logged in via the hosting brand. For example Jackpotjoy players could use their login to wager on Friendzy. Despite the usual concerns raised by the media over gambling and the presence of real money bingo on Facebook neither service took off and both were rapidly closed down. We think they failed because neither offered anything that players couldn't find on other brands. In addition mobile bingo was starting to develop so a Facebook app was an unnecessary extension.

Play For Fun Facebook Bingo Games

Whilst real play bingo apps didn't take off on Facebook, fun play games such as Bingo Blitz did. When we originally wrote this article the Buffalo Studio developed game had over 1million subscribers and almost 20,000 reviews. According to the blurb players can "play Bingo in any room to collect ingredients and bake their way to delicious wins. Each pastry you bake brings you sweet rewards". Fast forward to 2023 and there's no longer an FB app for Bingo Blitz. Instead you need to play via mobile apps. A similar story applies to the likes of Bingo Bash, Bingo Showdown, Bingo Pop and Bingo Holiday. Although these games are free in some cases to get further in some of the apps you do need to buy credits. It does seem that Facebook has clamped down on allowing gambling style games to use it's social gaming facilities. It hasn't gone so far as to not allow the likes of Bingo Blitz to use their platform (as they have done with some bingo portal and online bingo brands) but they've definitely distanced themselves from gambling products.

Bingo & Facebook

In fact when we orginally wrote this article we did wonder whether Facebook and Bingo would be able to work together. We noted that "bingo and Facebook are uncomfortable bed fellows" and cited that in 2018 our business pages for Loquax Bingo and Play Bingo were closed down without any notice because we didn't have permission from Facebook to advertise gambling products. To get permission you had to jump through hoops which Facebook didn't make easy to jump through. Oddly they chose not to close pages for Snappy, Penny or Clucky but it meant it was pointless developing the pages in fear they could be closed at any time. We concluded that "Facebook will eventually look towards closing free apps offering bingo and slots remains to be seen". And so it has come to pass that free apps for bingo can't be played via Facebook. Ultimately the experiment that mixed Facebook with real money bingo failed - and if hadn't had failed then The UKGC would probably have helped it close anyway. Of course you can still use the apps outside of social media but our advice is they're only an option if you want to play for fun and free. Resist paying for extra credits as they can get expensive.

From Social To Real Money

Whilst the likes of Bingo Friendzy may have failed, there have been some social success stories - at least to a point. Without social media it's possible that some games and brands would never have made the transition to the real world of online gambling. Wonder Bingo for example started life as a social game on Facebook. It developed into an online bingo brand but after an initial good start, struggled to survive in a saturated market and sadly closed down. The biggest success story howver is Slingo. It's hard to imagine that this slots/bingo game actually started life on social media. It was acquired by Gaming Realms and there are now multiple versions of the game - such as Starburst, Rainbow Riches, Fluffy Favourites and Reel King - across many popular UK bingo and slots brands.

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