Bingo Room Overhaul Hits Former Dragonfish Brands
Published On 4th November 2022
Since Broadway Gaming acquired 888 brands like Wink, Costa, Sing and 888 Ladies plus the Dragonfish platform we've been wondering what was going to happen next. At first it seemed like, other than kicking out affiliates, that not a lot was going to change. However more recently the Maxi Group of sites made changes to their welcome offers which we've suggested moves brands like Chit Chat, Pink Ribbon and Bid towards a slots audience. Now things have most certainly started to happen with an overhaul of bingo rooms pretty much across the board. Login to any site representative of a group on the platform and you'll find that many rooms are now universally the same. On top of that there looks like some closures have occurred too.
What Bingo Rooms Are Open
We logged in to a series of former Dragonfish bingo rooms to see how things have changed: Wink (part of the 888 group that includes Costa), Queen Bee (formerly a Real Money Network site and part of Tau Gaming), Moon Bingo (the Moon or United Bingo group), Quizingo (pretty much a standard Dragonfish brand) and City Bingo (part of the former Intertain/Costa group that was acquired by 888 before being sold to Broadway). The first thing that struck us was that the number of bingo rooms has decreased whilst the names of the main rooms are now uniform across all brands. Rooms are also no longer split up by 75 ball or 90 ball which is really stupid and pretty annoying. There are icons on each room to indicate the type of game but they're not the clearest. Rooms that players would have been familiar with such as High 5, Roller Coaster, Chatterbox, Big Fat 10, Sunny 90s and 90s Extreme have now gone and been replaced. In their place on most brands there's now Easy Peasy (75 ball) and Top Of The Shop (90 ball). The latter is Linked & Loaded on Moon but doesn't exist with the Tau brands.
Is There Still Free Bingo?
You can still play free bingo games on the former Dragonfish brands. However Wink looks to have adopted the same format as Costa, City and Sing with the arrival of The Bingo Academy Room. The Bingo Academy is joined by a Grab A Fiver room and £1K Magical Mondays. The latter is available at most other sites but not those under the Moon Umbrella (are you still with us!?). Whilst £1K Magical Mondays has survived it's notable that the £250 Free Bingo Sunday game has quietly vanished from view. The Bingo Academy also now appears on the likes of Quizingo which we're guessing now means the end of The Daily Doozey. Loyal Players will find that at some sites they'll have access to free rooms such as Loyal and Most Loyal. You won't find these at Wink or City for example but they are part of the make-up at Moon etc. These loyalty rooms are aimed at players who have been members of respective sites for 6months or 2years and have recently made deposits. Given that free games are usually aimed at newbies this is most welcome.
Jackpot Games Have Gone?
AWOL from the roster are a whole bunch of jackpot games. Made It Monday, Tuesday's Treat, Win It Wednesday and Thankful Thursday used to be all available to play with Wink for example but click on any 'Jackpot' tab and you'll be disappointed. Mystery Jackpots with prizes between £10 and £500 seems to be the only survivor of what seems quite a brutal cull of the bigger money games. Another departure from the roster seems to be The Big £10K game. Remember this was a bonus game for loyal players and the only way you could get tickets was by playing during the month. The game which played on the 10th of the month had a decent sized full house jackpot plus losing players got to share the pot too. Some sites still reference The Big £10K on their promotions pages and it is on Queen Bee so we're pretty confused. If it's still active then that's good news but it still doesn't account for the departure of the daily jackpot games. Progressive Jackpots are still available in the 75 ball and 90 ball rooms although we're never sure if anyone ever wins them anyway.
A Big Bingo Deal
One room that definitely has survived is the 52 ball playing card one. Previously it had multiple names across the network but it's now, sensibly, called Bingo Deal. However it's fellow 52 ball game, Bingo Roulette, looks like it's in the same file as The Big £10K. Other rooms that you can login and play across the network include The Red Carpet, The YOYO, Funky 5M, Gobsmacked, Wow, Flip It and Kaching. Whilst Funky 5M is exclusive to Wink, Costa, City etc the other rooms don't appear there. In fact it seems like the flagship brands from 888 have gotten the sticky end of the stick with this particular update. In terms of rooms and variety we found that Moon seems slightly more attractive although it doesn't have The Bingo Academy; Quizingo and similar do have The Bingo Academy and the same free rooms that you'll find at Wink plus the loyalty games which Wink don't have. Queen Bee has a good mix of rooms too but no Bingo Academy. However it does still show an active and live Big £10K Room under it's Ace Club tab.
What Can We Conclude?
We can conclude that finally something is stirring across the Dragonfish Network (or former network) and Broadway Gaming are starting to put their stamp on things. We suspect that the idea is to create a single uniformed basic network along the lines of Pragmatic Play with some brands/groups maintaining exclusive rooms/games to try and differentiate themselves. This actually isn't a bad idea as a few good rooms used by all brands is better than a whole bunch of empty ones. The loss of the jackpot games isn't good as that suggests cost cutting, but if player's aren't playing those games then perhaps it's not a surprise they've gone. We hope that in future we will see a few monthly big money games similar to other networks. The biggest conclusion is one of confusion. We know that Broadway Gaming intend to add Wink, Costa, City, Sing and 888 Ladies to their flagship brands. However at this point in time they all seem weaker propositions than smaller sites on the platform. What comes next is anyone's guess but at least something is starting to happen and hopefully we'll see a resurgent ex-Dragonfish platform for bingo players in 2023.
