Bingo has been used to raise money for charities since it was first introduced in the UK in the 1960’s. As well as being played in bingo halls, it was also regularly played in community centres and church halls.
However, the increased popularity of online bingo has been at the expense of offline bingo resulting in bingo hall closures. As a result, many online bingo sites are addressing the resultant fall in charitable contributions by staging regular charity games. Charity bingo games are played in the same way as normal bingo. The main difference is that a proportion of ticket sales are donated to nominated charities.
A good example of this is ‘Katie’s Charity Room’ on the Foxy Bingo website. The room was so named after Foxy Bingo’s former patron Katie Price (aka Jordan). Foxy matched 50% of all bingo tickets sold and donated it to charities nominated by Ms Price (Vision and The Disability Foundation).
There are some websites which focus heavily on charitable donations as part of their marketing strategy. They include Big Heart Bingo, which donates 50% of its net profits to charities and Hope Charity Bingo, a new gaming initiative in partnership with seven UK charities. The charities receive 25% of revenue from players that choose to support them.
As with Katie Price, other online sites regularly use celebrities to support their charity fundraisers. Famous names such as UK actress Michelle Collins and Keiza Obama – step mother of US president Barak Obama, have endorsed fundraisers by online bingo sites.