Bingo news
Smoking Ban Impacts Casinos in Scotland
The smoking ban imposed on Scotland has been pointed to as the primary reason for the 14 per cent drop in sales at Rank owned Fountain Park Mecca bingo clubs and the 2 per cent fall in establishments owned by the brewing group, Belhaven. These drops come in the aftermath of the smoking ban.
Fountain Park Mecca Bingo, which is a part of the Rank Group, experienced a sharp downhill slide in their visitor rate by as much as 6%. Spending per head was also 9% lower as bingo game players and others who are there to play, took smoking breaks between playing the games rather than spending money because they cannot smoke inside the hall.
Bingo Association published data concerning the situation last week said that bingo hall operators are faced with declining revenues that could reach as high as 27% and the bad news is that more than half of the regular players were smokers.
Bingo Association member, Stephen Baldwin, commented that it has only been three months since the smoking ban was imposed and already there are 5 clubs who closed their businesses with the remaining open clubs worriedly asking how much longer they can remain open under current situation.
But Mr. Baldwin believes that the bingo industry has a strong will to survive and is robust enough to bounce back from this crisis, particularly with the help of new services such as internet-based bingo (online bingo sites)."
Green King pub group owned Belhaven shared the status of its sales in Scotland being down 2.2 per cent since May this year, although Green King said that the performance of Belhaven was better contrary to what they expected because of the smoking ban and the worst case scenario that they are preparing for. In comparison, sales from its estate south of the border were at a positive level, with a healthy growth of 5.3 per cent.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Karen Jacobs