A Guide To Bingo Promotions
One of the joys of gaming at a UK bingo site is taking part in all of the promotions that they provide to players. Even if you don't win a prize or receive a bonus, there's a lot of entertainment value to be gained from just taking part.
What is a promotion?
Bingo slots bonuses are an extra activity, run on a regular schedule or as an occasional, that offers participants something extra – more cash to play with, more prizes, more entertainment – while playing bingo, as a by-product of playing bingo, or to be used while playing bingo.
The majority of the deals you can identify at UK bingo sites aren't really bingo promotions in themselves. A prize draw you win in by playing £10 at the slot of the week, whatever, isn't technically bingo unless prizes are for bingo bonus or other bingo-only related. If you aren't really into slots, it's actually infuriating if the bingo site you play on consistently only runs slots promotions.
Exclusive vs network promotions
An exclusive offer can be offered to the players at just one bingo site, or at a few sites collectively operated by the same manager.
A network offer operates at more than one site on a bingo or casino network.
Occasionally this just doesn't add up. If the offer is, say, spend £10 on this week's slot to receive 20 free spins, it just doesn't matter in the slightest how many other people accept the same offer.
What if it's a prize draw though? It all comes down to the number of other players you’re competing against and clearly you’re going to have a much better chance of winning if the promotion is running at a single site with hundreds of players rather than across a network with tens of thousands of players. That applies to ANY type of promotion which involves some kind of competition against other players; leaderboards and tournaments are just two types of promotion where networking is involved.
Bingo promotions – qualification methods
To play a promotion, the first you will have to do is meet any qualifying requirements. This might be as simple as just logging in, but most often is paying some level of money.
Deposit based
- A deposit promotion needs no introduction.
- Deposit some amount within the promotional period, get the bonus, free spins, free tickets, free access to a bingo room, bonus game, prize draw entry or something.
- Like deposit £5 today and you'll have access to a daily game for 7 days.
You might also need to enter some special code upon deposit to join one of these promotions. Using codes makes it possible for the bingo site to have several distinct deposit based promotions running at once and be able to present one promotion to some players and not others. New player codes can be published in magazines, on leaflets, sent out by direct mail, in a TV advert or on pages like ours and this enables the bingo site to determine what type of advertising works best for them. Promo codes for existing players may be sent via email or SMS, displayed on the promotions page of the bingo website and/or given out by chat hosts inside the bingo rooms.
Stake based
A stake based offer – also known as "stake and get" – requires you to wager some amount (almost always in real cash, not bonus) on a specified product during a specified period of time in order to qualify for the reward. e.g spend £5 on bingo in our featured bingo room to get a share of 10,000 free bingo tickets the next day, spend £10 on bingo to get entry into a prize draw, or spend £10+ on bingo to get 10% cashback on losses.
Stake based promotions can include an opt in and if they do, you need to opt in BEFORE playing.
Deposit and spend
Deposit and spend is a mix of deposit based and stake based. It's a standard phrase in welcome offers, e.g. "deposit and spend £10, get £30 bingo bonus" but can also be seen in offers for regular players.
Game enhancements
Game boost promotions affect bingo games played during the promo period so that players can win more or greater prizes, and you benefit from it by simply buying tickets to the game. For instance free scratchcard for non-winning players holding 6 or more tickets, chat game for ticketed in-play players
Freebies
You don't need to spend or put in any cash in order to win a freebie – you just have to be an account holder at the relevant site and registered. But this usually means having put something in once before. Free games every day at Gamesys sites are a perfect example of this.
Bingo promotions – what you can win
In the end, what you win from bingo promotions is either cold, hard cash or something that you can have in your hand – but not necessarily directly, because so much of the entertainment value is in achieving it. For example, take a bingo game with a prize of a £5000 holiday voucher; the entertainment value there is for players contingent upon how you obtain tickets to play in that bingo game. How much more thrilling is it if you can't simply buy them, but you get to win them playing other games of bingo or on a bonus round? Or even earn them based on wagers on other games?
Physical prizes
Shopping or holiday vouchers, electrical goods, and cars are some of the more desirable prizes to be won in bingo promotions, but the cream is money-can't-buy treats such as celebrity makeovers (Mecca Bingo) or VIP tours of the Coronation Street studio (Gala Bingo). Actually, it was Gala Bingo that took it to the extreme with possibly the most upper-crust (and strangest) prize ever – the winner's pet could be an extra on an episode of Emmerdale.
Bonuses
We all recognize what a bonus is and they are one of the most generally given extras in bingo promotions, in any flavour from a basic deposit bonus to a prize in a prize draw or tournament. All the bonuses carry wagering requirements and a time limit which will be stated in the promotion's terms and conditions – do read them before you play so that you will know how to convert the bonus to cash even if you have money in your account as well (this is the issue if the order of playing is cash first because you will not be able to play with the bonus without first losing the cash).
Spins
Slot spins aren't just one of the most frequent bonuses to receive, they are probably THE most frequent bonus (obviously if slot promotions which are available on bingo sites are taken into consideration). At Relax Gaming and Entain and the majority of Virtue Fusion bingo rooms, free spins are indeed free spins and any you win will be credited to your cash balance, but at Dragonfish and the majority of Pragmatic Play bingo rooms they are more accurately described as bonus spins because any you win will come in as a slot bonus with a wagering requirement that will take precedence over any other bonuses you are holding. We know which ones we prefer!
Free Bingo Tickets
Free bingo tickets – or more accurately, vouchers that can be exchanged against bingo tickets – are another standard perk but do note that they operate VERY differently across different varieties of bingo site. The Virtue Fusion system, which employs free tickets in a selection of standard bingo rooms against tickets valued up to 10p, is hugely superior to the Dragonfish system in which tickets can only be played into special bingo rooms where numerous players compete for small prizes. The only disadvantage to free tickets for bingo is that they can have a very limited time limit (24 hours is not unknown) so need to be used quickly.
Free Bingo Rooms
The ability to join an open bingo session is a common reward. It is different from free bingo tickets because to play in the free bingo sessions, you must be logged into the bingo room just before they start. If you cannot join then, you will miss entirely.
