Can Free Bingo Make Players Love MrQ
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MrQ Bingo launched in 2018 and promised to be an antidote to the endless new site launches on the same old platforms such as Jumpman and Dragonfish. Sites that opt to use their own proprietary software don't have an easy time. Whilst Tombola is an exception to the rule, it's hard to find any other successful alternative. You can argue that Gamesys and Entain fall into the Tombola category but they rely on multiple brands whilst Tombola is a singular entity. MrQ most certainly falls into the latter category but it's safe to say that bingo hasn't exactly been pulling up trees. Despite some initial early excitement, a bit of Influencer Bingo care of Cara De La Hoyde and Ay Childs and even Peter Andre getting in on the game, MrQ just hasn't quite cracked the big bingo nut.
Love Shack Free Bingo
Rather than up the ante with online bingo, MrQ scaled back things and limited their rooms to just a couple of 75 and 90 ball rooms including The Full Monty game which replaced Rock N Rollover. These rooms only seemed to host one game a day too which isn't a great way to keep players on site. The limited amount of bingo at MrQ made us wonder whether the powers that be were looking to follow in the footsteps of Heart, PlayOJO, Bet365 and many others by implementing the Pragmatic Play plugin bingo product. Thankfully that hasn't happened - not yet anyway - but there are signs that it may not happen and that MrQ will stick with to their own proprietary platform. During February they launched The Love Shack as part of their Valentine's celebrations. Whilst most sites shut these down after the 14th, MrQ have been happy to share the love for the whole of the month. Love Shack Bingo is a free to play game that runs daily at 7pm. It's a 90 ball game that gives qualifying players the chance to win a fiver. It might not be big money but in the grand scheme of things it's an important development.
Free Bingo Games
To play Love Shack Bingo you need to have made a deposit at MrQ within the last 30 days. If you've done that then you can happily login daily and claim free tickets for that day's game. So why is this game an important development? Well at time of writing MrQ have nearly 500 players who have signed up for today's game. This means that they definitely have players interested in playing bingo. The problem that they face is converting those who want to play for free into players who are happy to wager in other games. Comparatively 6 players are looking to play The Full Monty, 22 are wagering in Cheap As Chips and 40 are hoping to Pinch A Penny. Another free room, On The House, that offers regular £1 prize games comes in at 60+ players. This is evidence that players will wager on bingo at MrQ but not at high prices like £1 a ticket, but more importantly only 10% of those happy to play for free are purchasing penny tickets for Pinch A Penny. That doesn't bode well for the arrival of new rooms or more regular games.
Is Plug-In Bingo The Answer?
Would a plug-in bingo product improve bingo at MrQ? We've asked this before but we're not sure it's the answer. Bingostars is one of the newest additions on the block and utilises Pragmatic Play. This means they have network rooms like Diamond Dazzle, Bingo Blast and 30 Ball Speed Bingo. Noting that these rooms are networked across many sites including big brands - at time of writing - each room was hosting less than 10 players. Bingostars have added a host of exclusive rooms to go above the network offering and that's great news. Unfortunately every single of these rooms has 0 (ZERO) players who have been happy to pre-buy. Things fair better at the likes of Bet365 and Heart but even so the rooms are nowhere near the levels of players you'd find at Tombola. But it's not just MrQ or plug-in products that are suffering from lack of numbers. A quick scan at an old favourite, Wink Bingo, and you can find rooms struggling to attract players. For example, Bingo Deal, the 52 ball playing card game on the Dragonfish Network and The YoYo. Whatever the plan is for Wink and co from new owners Broadway Gaming it's not exactly piling in the numbers.
Too Much Focus On Slots?
A few years back online bingo was the rising star of online gambling. Brands were happy to giveaway cars, holidays and big cash prizes. Now it's become a game that's shunted to the side with little concern for improvement. The problem is that every brand pretty much knows that there's more money and interest in slots. Every bingo site has bingo on a backburner and slots cooking high on gas. Look at promotions at Jackpotjoy - the focus is on slots. At Sun Bingo the top promos are slots orientated. Over on Sky Bingo there are some bingo focused exclusives but the prizes on offer are much smaller than we've seen in previous years. The same applies to MrQ who whilst starting life as a bingo disruptor has become much more slots and casino focused. That's fine but it does make it difficult for them to then make a march on the bingo audience, even more so when that audience interest seems to be dwindling across the game. It'd be interesting to know how bingo player numbers are up or down in 2023 compared to other years - and whether those players are consolidating on specific brands. From what we can see only Tombola seems to be getting bingo right. Free bingo at MrQ may help get the ball rolling but they seem as far away from becoming the next Tombola (bingo wise) as they did in 2018. Hopefully things can only get better.
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