Season's End For Four More Bingo Sites
Published On 8th January 2024
Back in October we reported that a whole bunch of former Dragonfish brands, headed up by Fancy Bingo, were closing their doors. The sites involved were sister sites to Costa Bingo and Sing Bingo and they'd been purchased by Broadway Gaming as part of their acquisition of the Dragonfish platform. Joining Fancy in the virtual dustbin were the likes of Monkey, Angry, Farmhouse and Dino. However surprisingly it did leave a handful of others who all were related to the old Costa group. Would they survive and thrive or would Broadway decide to kick them into touch too? Well we can you tell that sadly these sites have now closed.
Buried Treasure
Treasure Bingo, Rio Bingo, Season Bingo and Wish Bingo now all redirect to 888 Ladies. We don't recall any notices of closure for any of these brands and interestingly other portals are currently not showing them as "closed". We wonder whether this is therefore a very recent change and that after the festive break Broadway have decided that it's high time to put the remaining Costa siblings out of their misery. Wish we believe was the first new addition to the group after Costa, Sing, City and Fancy. It had a number of incarnations before finally settling on a more astral plain. Meanwhile Rio arrived around the time of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Hooray for the days when operators just jumped on any occasion to shoehorn in interest in bingo. Treasure had a more pirates theme and was a brand we liked. We did open Treasure Slots on Jumpman before reliquinishing it quickly and seeing it close. Maybe Treasure just isn't the right name for an online bingo/slots brand? Meanwhile Season aimed to offer a Christmas experience all year round. This was a brand we liked but the festivities quickly lost their sparkle when The UKGC decided Santa wasn't a good look for bingo.
A Season Of Closures
The closure of these brands sadly isn't a surprise as the writing has been on the wall for them all since even before Broadway Gaming signed on the dotted line and purchased Dragonfish. In fact you could say the writing was on the wall even before 888 bought the Costa group. At that stage all sites were rapidly becoming one and the same, offering the same rooms, same offers and same promotions. Multiple brands on the same platform just couldn't function independently and it was easier for operators to run one promo across one network. Instead of being able to play at 10 sites for 10 x £50 prizes (for example) 10 sites were sharing 1 x £50 prize. Bingo sites that start making cuts seem to end up spiralling until the inevitable closure occurs. The Costa groups cause wasn't helped by an ill fated journey into no wagering terms country. It probably was a good idea at the time but the experiment should have been across a couple of brands and not a whole group. By the time bonuses had changed to more familiar offers a bingo market of multiple sites was on the decline. Also when you consider that former crowd favourites of Sing and Costa weren't (and still arent't) getting the spotlight from current and former owners, the likes of Treasure, Rio, Dino, Wish etc had no chance to thrive.
What Next For Broadway Gaming?
When Broadway Gaming acquired Dragonfish they also ended up with a load of sites. Aside from Wink, 888 Ladies, Costa and Sing which look as though they're going to be OK, the only ones remaining are City, Redbus, Tasty, Posh and Bingo Street. We believe that they may now also own Bucky Bingo and Bingo Hollywood. We suspect Bucky will survive going forward but the future of the rest must now surely be in only one direction? The remaining brands all need makeovers as their sites are stuck in 2010 (at best) plus they'll all need some kind of promotional boost - either with affiliates or other marketing means. Furthermore Broadway still has a number of partners with white-label sites and we anticipate that 2024 may also see a few closures amongst those. We suspect that sadly though we will see them end up sending players to Wink or 888 Ladies sometime during 2024 unless someone opts to buy them. However as all the brands have been practically dormant for quite a while it's hard to imagine who would want to purchase them in current market conditions. Hopefully a cull of the deadwood will enable some much needed green shoots to appear this year.
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