Best New Bingo Sites Nominees For 2022? Really?
Published On 25th January 2023
Yesterday (24th January) was Oscar Nomination Announcement day and that means we're rapidly moving into Awards season. Online bingo has it's own awards thanks to efforts from bigger portals such as Which Bingo and BingoPort. If you check in at a number of brands at this moment in time you'll note that they're hoping to illicit votes for the latter's 2023 round. Awards are an emotive issue and to be honest we're not great fans of the voting mechanisms used. The winners tend to be those sites that mobilise the most visitors to the portal making it more of a popularity contest as opposed to celebrating the great and the good. Still it's better than the awards which ask for payments from nominees. Anyway we had a look at the BingoPort Awards for 2023 and were surprised by the list for 'Best New Bingo Site'.
Best New Bingo Site
As we wrote yesterday, the number of new bingo sites that launched in 2022 was pretty negligible. In our view "new" should actually mean brand new and not just one shifting from one platform to another. However the list for "Best New Bingo Site" throws up some interesting suggestions. In our best Oscars presenting voice, the nominations are: Fabulous Bingo, Glitter Bingo, Heart Bingo, Mirror Bingo, Mr Spin, Prize Land Bingo and Sing Bingo. How these were collated as "best newcomers" remains a mystery because we'd argue that none of them - yes none of them - are new. Fabulous Bingo launched in 2011 and Glitter Bingo in 2012; Heart arrived on the scene in 2010 which was still two years later than Mirror Bingo. Mr Spin is relatively young with a 2016 launch date although Sing is another from 2010. The closest to 2022 is Prize Land Bingo with a 2021 launch date. So just what the heck is going on here? How can anyone in their right mind claim any of the above are new?
Relaunches And Moves Don't Make New Sites
Although Fabulous launched in 2011 it did move from Gamesys to Virtue Fusion along with Sun Bingo. It has had a revamp recently but nothing whatsoever that screams new. Another revamped site is Glitter but it's been online since 2012. Having the decorators in just doesn't equate to "new". Why Heart and Mirror are in this group is insane. Both changed platforms to Pragmatic Play and Jumpman respectively a couple of years back. Neither are new in any stretch of the imagination. Mr Spin perhaps more well known for slots and most certainly we don't think bingo. Perhaps it added a new channel in 2022? Well "no" because according to Mr Spin they launched the game on their site back in 2018. Prize Land Bingo perhaps could be seen as "new" but it used to be Iceland Bingo. It also launched in 2021 the same year as the 2022 winner, Double Bubble. But all these questions are irrelevant when we arrive at Sing! Sing Bingo - a site that launched in 2010 and the only thing "new" about it is that it has new owners. Without putting too fine a point on it - this is utter nonsense. If there are no new sites themn don't have a new site category. Surely that's better than shoehorning in rubbish and making a mockery of visitors, players and brands.
Other Award Categories
Other categories that you can vote on include Best Dragonfish Bingo Site, Best Jumpman Bingo Site, Best Playtech Site, Best Proprietary Software Bingo Site plus a bunch of slots awards and overall best site. The Jumpman category is intriguing because how do you differentiate 170+ sites that all do the same thing, boil them down to eight and then perm one from that? Another intriguing selection falls under "Best Proprietary Software". Butlers Bingo that is powered by Pragmatic Play falls under that category. Pragmatic Play powers 100s of sites including all those on Jumpman as well as Heart, Bet365, PlayOJO etc. So Butlers inclusion makes no sense. Jackpotjoy and Double Bubble are on the same platform and there's no sign of Tombola anywhere!! Foxy which is powered by Entain get a "Best Proprietary Software" nomination and Best Overall Bingo site nomination, but Gala which uses the same platform only gets the latter. Again this makes no sense to us. But then not a lot in this industry makes sense these days. Fingers crossed for our own Clucky Bingo which launched in 2013 and closed a few years later getting a nomination next year!
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