£250K Tombola Bingo Jackpot Shared By Two
Published On 12th January 2024
During December we mentioned that there were some big money bingo games taking place during the festive period. One of those games was at Tombola who were hosting the latest in their series of Britain's Biggest Bingo games. This game had been put on hiatus around June 2023 returned to the fold for one game in November and another at the start of 2024. The latter could have created The UK's biggest online bingo winner (we think) as a whopping £250,000 guaranteed was in the pot. The record however remains intact because although quarter of a million pounds was given away on New Year's Day the prize was actually split. Bonbon187 and ella2288 both started 2024 with a nice £125,000. But who will win the next Britain's Biggest Bingo Jackpot at Tombola?
On Hiatus Again?
Well the answer to that question as of mid-January is no one because Britain's Biggest Bingo has been dropped from Tombola's roster once again. The room has gone and there's no promotions encouraging players to sign up. In fact there's not even any notice explaining just where the game has gone. Had the game been running for several months then that kind of would make sense but to come and go after just two seems a little strange. Could it be that players just didn't take to the game? The first winner after BBBG's return was ryancornwall with £156,528. No small sum in terms of winnings but not on the scale of the earlier games in the series. For Tombola though it could be significant. They guaranteed £250K for their second game which in theory, assuming the wagers were similar to November, meant they may have to stump up £100K extra to cover the prizes. That's a very expensive bingo game and not one many operators would like! The fact that BBBG has vanished in the wind might well back up this theory.
Is Tombola Changing?
In 2021 Tombola was acquired by Flutter Entertainment for £402million. Flutter are the owners of Paddy Power, Betfair and Skybet. Back in 2021 we did wonder whether the acquistion would spark the development of a Tombola network. For example could the bingo platform be integrated into Sky, Paddy Power and Betfair to replace the current rooms powered by Virtue Fusion? In some ways it'd make sense as Flutter would have their own platform on their own brands much in the same way that Entain has with Gala and Foxy. On the other hand it would potentially dilute Tombola as a brand or negate the need for bingo on it's new sister sites. At the moment it does seem that Tombola will stay "independent" but there have been changes. Free Fivers was dropped for the first time in 2023 and the daily free games have seen changes in their prize structure. Games have also been dropped from Tombola including Hamster Races, an original game from when the site first launched. Unfortunately betting on racing critters is deemed to be too attractive to underage gamblers who somehow can get into the site to play the game (spoiler alert, they shouldn't be able to).
An Arcade Merger?
An intriguing change to Tombola though is seeing the replacements popping into the 'casino games' section where the once mighty Hamster Races held court. There's nothing new or unique but instead scratchcard and slots from Arcade such as Pirate's Curse, Jungle, Phoenix, Bubble and Galleon are featured. It's almost as if the bingo site is merging with arcade. And with that in mind it wouldn't be a huge surprise to see - somewhere down the line - a fully integrated slots and bingo site as opposed to separate bingo and arcade versions. Whether that happens remains to be seen but it does seem that the new owners are keen to push slots onto players, as indeed are many bingo operators. It also has to be noted that in October 2023 it was reported that 250 jobs were at risk at Tombola especially within the customer experience team. How that effects things going forward remains to be seen. Overall we hope that Tombola remains true to it's origins as an online bingo destination. It'll be interesting to see how things progress over the next 12 months.
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