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Retirement Looms For Pragmatic Play Bingo

A bingo ball carrying an envelope that says PENSION

In a shock announcement last week, Pragmatic Play confirmed that they are winding down their bingo product (and their sportsbook and virtual sports offering) in order to concentrate on slots and live casino.  The withdrawal will take place over the next few months and operators currently using these products will be supported through the migration process.

More than a hundred UK bingo sites currently run on the Pragmatic Play bingo software.  Most of them are Jumpman sites but there are also some high profile independents like Planet Sport Bet, Lottogo and Bingo Britain that use it.  The question is, where will they migrate to?  There’s not a lot of options!

  1. Playtech Bingo – the clear market leader, it’s the obvious and arguably the only choice for operators who take bingo seriously.  It’s got the sense of community, the range of different types of bingo games, the promotions and the liquidity. (Liquidity is the amount of money in the system – Playtech have lots due to the massive player base and this explains why they are able to offer such attractive prizes).  It’s not surprising that major operators PlayOJO and Heart Bingo have already dumped the Pragmatic Play product to switch to Playtech.
  2. Dragonfish Bingo – the Broadway owned software is now available as a plugin (as seen at Glossy Bingo and sister sites) so in theory Broadway could pitch it to operators as a direct replacement for Pragmatic Play.  This would be a golden opportunity for Broadway to increase the player base and liquidity of the once very popular software, which is badly needed (currently their bingo rooms are very quiet).
  3. Other UK bingo software – there are a number of other UK facing bingo products including Entain, Gamesys, MrQ, Happy Tiger and Relax Gaming (as seen at Unibet) but all are currently exclusive to a single licence. Possibly someone might take the business decision to supply their bingo product as a plugin to increase liquidity, but it seems like a very long shot.
  4. New bingo software – no-one is going to be able to develop a bingo product from scratch and get it licensed and properly tested in just a few months, but it’s possible that a non UK bingo supplier like Parlay or End2End might obtain a UK licence to step into the gap.  Both have had UK licences before although in the case of End2End nothing came of it.  Parlay ran a number of UK bingo sites up until 2019 and have reportedly expressed interest in returning to the UK.
  5. Dropping the bingo entirely – the nuclear option, but an easy way out for operators who never took bingo seriously in the first place.  More viable for brands that don’t have “bingo” in their name, but it wouldn’t be the first time that a site with “bingo” in its name didn’t actually have any bingo – Dream Bingo and Mainstage Bingo ran like that for years (and Mainstage still does).
  6. Bingo, but not as we know it – an operator going with this option would retain a bingo section on their website, but it would not include any actual multiplayer bingo.  Instead, there would be video bingo games like G Game’s Bingo 90 and PlayNGo’s Viking Runecraft Bingo, together with bingo adjacent live casino game shows like Evolution’s Mega Ball, Playtech’s Wonderland Lucky Ball and Pragmatic Play’s own The Bingo Spot.
Playing The Bingo Spot
The Bingo Spot looks and plays very like multiplayer bingo and even has live chat

Once the operators have decided what they are doing and let us know, we’ll update our bingo reviews accordingly.  In the meantime, bear in mind that if you sign up to a bingo site with Pragmatic Play bingo, that part of the site is going to look quite different in just a few months.

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Sue Dawson
Creating iGaming content since 2013 - bingo and slots specialist

Sue Dawson has been writing about (and playing) online bingo and slots since 2013, putting her unique spin on everything.  She has…

Sue Dawson has been writing about (and playing) online bingo and slots since 2013, putting her unique spin on everything.  She has written pieces for iGaming industry news sites, appeared on and moderated panels at industry events and on podcasts, helped to judge industry awards and is a member of iGB Executive, a high level industry think tank.  In her spare time she enjoys gaming, hiking, dancing, watching motorsport and reading science fiction.

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