Gala Bingo to Close Bingo Halls

The smoking ban in the United Kingdom has claimed some further casualties. Gala Coral is expected to close five or more of its bingo clubs this weekend. The clubs that will be closed are the poorer performing clubs and among them will be the West Granton club in Edinburgh, the Winton club in Bournemouth and the Bedminster club in Bristol.

Gala Coral, the operator of Gala Bingo, is the largest bingo operator in the United Kingdom with 169 clubs. They, like number two Rank Group, the operator of Mecca Bingo, have been hard hit by the smoking ban, the limit of four on high payout fruit machines and the tax situation. The result has been a decrease in attendance and therefore revenues and profits as many people are staying away from the land-based bingo halls. Many have made the switch to online play.

Rank closed seventeen of its land-based bingo halls already and may also have more closures coming. Bingo players, like other gamblers, tend to be smokers, and the smoking ban is hurting the bingo operators more than the other factors are. Even tax relief will probably not help the operators enough to overcome the losses due to the smoking ban. Gala will probably try to sell the five building structures from the closings although there may be lease arrangements that complicate matters.

Both Gala Coral and Rank are reviewing their current situation. Rank is watching its stock being quietly purchased by Genting, Richardson and Guoco since Rank holds a sizeable number of the hard to get UK gambling licenses.

Posted: February 10, 2008
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