Mecca Bingo
 | |
| Company type | Limited company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Gambling |
| Founded | 1961 |
| Headquarters | Maidenhead, Berkshire, England |
Area served | United Kingdom |
Key people | John O'Reilly |
| Products | Bingo clubs |
| Revenue | £221.5m (2015/16) |
| £32.9m (2015/16) | |
| Parent | The Rank Group |
| Website | www |
Mecca Bingo is a UK-based company and operator of 72 bingo clubs located across major towns and cities. Mecca Bingo is owned by The Rank Group PLC, which operates bingo, casinos and online gaming industries across the UK, Belgium and Spain. Rank also own Grosvenor Casinos, Enracha, YoBingo, Spin And Win, Kitty Bingo, Lucky VIP and Lucky Pants Bingo. Mecca Bingo was established in 1961, and its headquarters is in Maidenhead.[1] An extension of the Mecca Bingo brand includes meccabingo.com and a number of mobile apps. Mecca Bingo is the largest National Bingo Game operator in the UK.
As of June 2015, Mecca Bingo’s revenue was recorded at £224.4 million, with an operating profit of £28.9 million.[2] The Rank Group reports there are one million customers who visit Mecca each year, with £65.2 million revenue generated from digital. The Mecca network currently employs more than 2000 people its venues, head quarters and digital businesses.[3] Their halls host traditional and electronic versions of bingo, including slot-style games. Mecca are licensed and regulated by the UK Gambling Commission and the Alderney Gambling Control Commission.
In October 2019, Mecca's parent company The Rank Group PLC completed the acquisition of Stride Gaming.
History
Eric Morley, British TV host and founder of the Miss World pageant, is accredited with popularising the game of bingo in the United Kingdom during the early sixties, as a tactic to fill the UK’s dance halls. In 1952, he was Mecca's general manager of dancing, and was made a director in 1953. Morley first brought Bingo into the Dance Halls in the afternoons, as a way to make the most of otherwise unused entertainment spaces. And as dance halls continued to lose their popularity, bingo took over with Morley and Mecca at the forefront. With Mecca, Morley helped to popularise bingo which was played at Mecca venues throughout the United Kingdom. He changed the company from a small catering and dancing firm into a leading entertainment and catering company. A director of the company from 1953 up until 1978, Morley left the business after a disagreement with its then parent company, Grand Metropolitan.[4]
In 1990, the Rank Organisation made an offer of £512m to acquire Mecca Leisure Group. This was initially rejected, then accepted two months later.[5] Following the Rank Organisation acquisition of Mecca Leisure Group, a number of Top Rank venues were renamed and rebranded to become Mecca clubs.
During the 1990s, some 340,000 visits were made to Mecca venues every single week. Even in today’s online world, Mecca venues still draw in around 135,000 visits each week. And during Mecca’s 60 years, the company has given away more than £1bn in prizes.
In 2007, three Mecca Bingo customers from Glasgow and Stevenage became instant millionaires, thanks to the Mecca Millionaires promotion.
Among Mecca Bingo’s online and digital estate are its jackpots. In 2019, one Mecca customer won just under £1million, after winning the jackpot twice in just 10 days on the MegaJackpots Cleopatra slot.
In 2007, Mecca Bingo and its parent company suffered significant losses, attributed to the implementation of the smoking ban in the UK. Rank shut nine Mecca Bingo venues, with 230 people losing their jobs.[6] In 2015, Mecca Bingo launched a marketing campaign featuring a twerking cactus. The campaign adverts helped to increase Mecca’s digital sales by 18 per cent, year on year, in the 20 weeks to 17 May[7]
In 2020, Mecca Bingo campaigned to introduce National Bingo Day to the U.K. The first National Bingo Day will be held on Sunday 27th June, 2021, having historically been celebrated just in the US.
In 2021, Mecca Bingo celebrated its 60th birthday. In that time, it’s believed that more than 200 million visits have been made to Mecca venues, three times the British population.
To celebrate Mecca’s 60th birthday, the company have launched a number of events, including a night of bingo at 1960's prices, party nights to celebrate missed moments with friends and family during the 2020/21 pandemic and expect to create 50,000 winners a week.
Awards
Mecca Bingo was awarded ‘Bingo Operator of the Year’ at the 2016 International Gaming Awards.[8] It won the same award in 2014 and 2015, with Rank Group also winning ‘Socially Responsible Operator of the Year Land Based’.[9][10]
Mecca Bingo won two awards at the 2016 EGR Innovation and Marketing Awards:[11] ‘Best Native App’ and ‘Innovation in Bingo’ for their Emoji Bingo game – an App that swaps bingo balls for emojis.
In 2017 Mecca Bingo won WhichBingo awards for Best Customer Services and Most Socially Responsible, along with the EGR award for Best Mobile Bingo Product.
In 2018, Mecca Bingo won WhichBingo awards for Best Playtech Bingo Site, Best Customer Service and Most Socially Responsible Operator. Mecca Bingo repeated its WhichBingo Best Customer Service success in 2019.
In 2020, Mecca Bingo won the WhichBingo awards for Best Marketing Campaign and Best Mobile Bingo site. Also in 2020, a YouGov survey revealed Mecca was among the top 10 most recommended entertainment & leisure brands.
In the same year, Mecca won the 2020 EGR Marketing and Innovation awards for Innovation in Tablet and App for the Mecca Bingo app, plus the award for best bingo marketing campaign for Mecca Dream Come True.
Celebrities and entertainment
Mecca Bingo venues have seen a number of celebrity visitors over the years. In 1995, Eastenders stars Barbara Windsor and Ross Kemp made an appearance in Aberdeen. Arriving in a horse-drawn carriage, hundreds of fans turned out to see the pair and grab an autograph.
In 2006, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, made a surprise visit to his then-local Mecca Bingo venue in Reading. HRH was staying at nearby RMA Sandhurst and is known to be a bingo fan.
In 2017 meccabingo.com began working on its own streaming channel (Mecca TV) to bring entertainment back to the heart of bingo on the online space.
It created two series of singing contest shows ‘Mecca Star’ which searched the UK for the next big singer. In 2018 Loula Panayi was crowned winner scooping the £2,500 cash prize. In 2019 Mandi Fisher pipped the finalists to become the winner of the second series – she has since gone onto release an EP and self-penned dance track ‘No More Lies’ and Charity Single ‘We gotta try’.
In series one, Claire King as head judge was joined by Gareth Gates, Charlotte Crosby and entertainment journalist Susan Hill as the celebrity panel who auditioned over 50 finalists to short list for a live final.
Customers of meccabingo.com could watch the episodes weekly on the website and then vote for their favourite act in an online vote, the finalists would visit the chat rooms and talk about their experiences to the customers during the weeks leading up to the final. The final was streamed live and the audience of mecca competition winners along with streaming viewers had one last chance to vote for their favourite.
In series two, Susan Hill returned to the judging seat this time joined by, The X Factor winner Ben Heanow, Blue’s Duncan James and West End star and TV actress Claire Sweeney.
In 2019 meccabingo.com launched streaming shows via Mecca TV. These shows support some of the amazing campaigns on the websites and were a mixture of celebrity interviews, games and prize draws. This progressed in 2020 to hosting shows five nights a week, each series running for 4-6 weeks per series.
These shows would see up to 12,0000 viewers per evening during the two-hour show presented by Lisa Celisse, Leah Charles-King, Craig Stevens, Bobby Norris, Robin Windsor and Antony Costa.
In 2019 meccabingo.com launched Mecca Dream Come True, including a home improvement show where Claire Sweeney and her team take over a competition winners home and transform it in just one day. Currently 10 episodes have been filmed over two series.
In 2019 meccabingo.com launched Mecca Me Over, a style makeover show where 10 years younger and X Factor Stylist Gemma Shepherd makes over competition winners with some amazing style transformations, as of 2021 two series have been filmed, and two more are awaiting completion due to the COVID pandemic.
Since 2018 Celebrity Stories has been a customer favourite, with four seasons completed and two more for 2021 planned, celebrities chat in front of a studio audience made up of competition winners from meccabingo.com. Due to COVID series three and four were filmed virtually to an audience due to lockdown restrictions. There have been three series (12 episodes) on Soap Stars presented by Susan Hill and one series (Four episodes) celebrating the stars on The X Factor presented by Kate Thornton. The series’ so far have included, Sherrie Hewson, Sarah Jayne Dunn, Danny Miller, Kearon Richardson, Lisa George, Jennie McAlpine, Ray Quinn, Ashley Taylor Dawson, Adele Silva, Sam Baily, Joe McElderry, Victoria Ekanoye.
Community
Throughout its 60-year history, Mecca has enjoyed close ties with its local communities.
Via the Rank Cares initiative, Mecca has partnered with Carers Trust since February 2014, and raised more than £2.6m for the charity since the partnership began. Mecca has also provided free meals to NHS and emergency workers via the Blue Light Card campaign.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mecca provided more than 25,000 meals to from its Hub Club kitchens, in addition to supporting a number of local charities, surprising customers with milestone birthday gifts plus hampers for special occasions such as Mother’s Day and Easter.
In 2020, during the pandemic, Love Island star Chris Hughes, a big supporter of Mecca Bingo, helped package up food parcels at Mecca Dagenham for those in need. In December 2020, Mecca launched a campaign called Everyone Deserves a Christmas raising funds for 3800 hampers worth £185 000 collectively, supporting 56 charities with the campaign.
And through its Community Care campaign, Mecca hosted regular Zoom bingo events in Care Homes, to provide regular customers with engagement and entertainment during UK lockdown. Mecca also made more than 11,000 calls to support its most vulnerable customers during this time.
Meccabingo.com
Mecca Bingo offers more than 20 variations of bingo rooms through its online website, including a number of 90-ball, 80-ball and 75-ball rooms.
Many rooms feature prizes and promotions unique to that room. In Best Odds Bingo, each player receives 10 tickets and only 25 players are allowed to play, ensuring an even chance to win.
Main Event Bingo is one of Mecca’s most popular rooms. A 90-ball room, Main Event Bingo can feature progressive jackpot prizes. Other notable rooms include Penny Lane with tickets from 1p, plus Housey Bingo with a Poker twist feature.
Safer gambling
Mecca Bingo is committed to safer gambling and employs a number of processes and tools to assist its customers.
These include features such as setting deposit limits, setting reminders for time spent on site, plus the ability to set break periods and self-exclusion options. In addition to these facilities, Mecca has also supported the removal of credit cards as a source payment of funds.
Full information on Mecca Bingo’s safer gambling policies can be found on Rank’s Keep It Fun website.
References
- ^ "Our Business - Rank Group Plc". www.rank.com. Retrieved 2016-09-12.
- ^ "Mecca - Rank Group Plc". www.rank.com. Retrieved 2016-09-12.
- ^ "Meet the man trying to breathe new life into bingo". Retrieved 2016-09-12.
- ^ "The Long History Of Mecca Bingo". 2009-12-10. Retrieved 2016-09-12.
- ^ "The Rank Group plc - Company Profile, Information, Business Description, History, Background Information on The Rank Group plc". www.referenceforbusiness.com. Retrieved 2016-09-12.
- ^ Kollewe, Julia (2007-03-03). "Mecca Bingo halls struggle in face of all-out smoking ban". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-09-12.
- ^ "This is how a dancing cactus has helped boost business at Mecca bingo". 2015-05-21. Retrieved 2016-09-12.
- ^ "IGA Winners 2016". 2015-12-01. Retrieved 2016-09-12.
- ^ "IGA Winners 2014". 2014-01-02. Retrieved 2016-09-12.
- ^ "IGA Winners 2015". 2015-01-22. Retrieved 2016-09-12.
- ^ "Winners". Retrieved 2016-09-12.
External links
