Get involved in two brand new promotions from 2nd March at bet365 bingo with Dubai or not Dubai heading up the action!

Win a luxury trip to Dubai for two, one of three VIP sporting experience days or one of 10 Samsung Galaxy tablets.

Simply play from 2nd March until 26th April to earn tokens, then trade them in and enter a prize draw of your choice. Get one token for every £10 wagered in any Bingo room, one for every £5 in selected rooms and one for every one-line, two-line and Full House in the new Auction House room. Plus, play Featured Chat Games for the chance to win extra tickets too!

You can also earn a token for every £20 cash staked on Slots and Scratchcards, or one per £10 staked on Featured Games: Sevens High and Sinbad. There are also weekly booster days that give a chance to get even more tokens for your money.

There’s more to be won at bet365 bingo from the 2nd March, with mobile prize draw promotion: iPhone Giveaway!

Download the Mobile Bingo app by visiting bet365 bingo on your iPhone, iPad or Android and earn unlimited prize draw tickets for the chance to win an iPhone 6. Earn one ticket for every £5 wagered on Bingo or Slots through the app before 15th March, and earn double for the same stake when playing in selected rooms or on Featured Slots.

The action never stops, there are plenty more offers to come and prizes to be won in the coming months at bet365 bingo, join in and play today!

About bet365

bet365 is one of the world’s largest online gambling groups with over 14 million customers worldwide. bet365 offers a Bingo experience that’s unrivalled. The Group employs over 2,000 people and is one of the UK’s largest private companies.

At the iGaming Business Affiliate Awards 2015, bet365 won Best Overall Affiliate Programme for the sixth year running and retained the Best Affiliate Programme – Sports award along with securing the Players’ Choice – Best Online Sportsbook award.

bet365 was named In-Play Sports Operator of the Year for the fourth year in succession and retained the title of Sports Betting Operator of the Year at the 2014 eGaming Review Awards. In the eGaming Review’s Annual Power 50 for 2014, bet365 secured top spot for the fifth year running.

Cashcade is one of the most successful of all the UK-facing online bingo operators. They have under their umbrella, brands such as Foxy, and Cheeky Bingo, with Foxy being one of the best of breed internet bingo brands. A recent competitive pitch for their media contract has seen Cashcade award UM London with a deal worth £8 million.

The concept "if it a’int broke don’t fix it" applies here, an as Foxy’s creative shop – Biscuit Agency – has been so successful, this will not change. But Concord is out, and UM is in with a chance to win. UM has hit the ground running and re-negotiated a sponsorship deal between Foxy and the Jeremy Kyle day time show.

In the meantime in UK live bingo, the luckiest halls have been named with two London clubs in the lead. These are The Palaces Bingo in Elephant and Castle, and Beacon Bingo Cricklewood. The National Bingo Game Association announced on 25th February, that between them, these two halls netted fifty-five NGBA wins. Mecca Bingo – the Forge Centre Glasgow came a close second, which placed it in the top three. Other clubs included – Mecca Bingo, Talbot Road, Mecca, Chandlers Wharf, Castle Bingo, Newport, Mecca, Aberdeen, Mecca, Clough Road, Hull, Mecca, Wrexham, and last but by no means least Castle Bingo, Bridgend.

Yes, it is true that the Brits love their online bingo, but they also love live bingo too, and recently members from Mecca Bingo Thanet travelled to Downing Street to deliver a petition. They were following up on a campaign to reduce bingo tax. Bingo as an industry in the UK is taxed higher than all gambling concerns at 20%. For years the industry has been attempting to get this soft-gambling games’ tax in line with other gaming activities. 15% is what sports betting and casino firms pay, and this number is what should be fair for bingo too.

Now players of this game have taken the power of the consumer to the street in support of one of their favourite pass-times, and a petition has been signed by over 300,000 bingo players, and dropped off at Number 11 Downing Street. The ‘Boost Bingo’ campaign is being spearheaded by the Bingo Association, and has drawn signatures from fans who frequent 400 land bingo halls throughout the UK.

It has been years that the UK bingo industry has been trying to get HMRCS to cut bingo tax. This is tax for clubs of the live variety, not necessarily the online kind. Now, apparently all Britain is celebrating because the Government has finally realised that this industry is in serious jeopardy. Bingo tax has been cut from 15 to 10%. Chancellor, George Osborne has finally been convinced to attempt to “protect jobs and protect communities”. During the last thirty years – ¾ of bingo halls have gone out of business, and 2000 jobs have been lost.

But like all taxation concessions, the Chancellor is still compelled to balance the budget, and has predictably given with the right hand, while taking away with the left. The bad news is that fixed odds betting terminals have to bear the burden of the concession for bingo. According to Osborne, these machines have "proliferated" during the last ten years. So, he has raised their tax to 25%. On the good side – and there is another – beer duty has also been cut, and Rank (Mecca Bingo)will be building three new bingo halls.

On the other side of the tax landscape – online gambling concerns that are situated in white listed areas, have not paid tax to the UK since the industry first got its start. It is realistically speaking unfair, that these businesses may offer services to a UK-facing audience, make money from these services, and not pay tax to the UK Treasury. This is all set to change, and taxes on remote gambling are about to kick off from December of this year (2014).

In the meantime Ireland has not been as quick off the mark as the British have, where the regulatory process for online gambling tax has not yet passed the committee stage. The Betting (Amendment) Bill 2012 has passed through the Dailhowever, but who knows how much longer the bill will take to be passed? This act provides a regulatory regime for online gaming operators, but has been gathering dust since 2011. Apparently the Ministry for Finance has been dragging their heels, and all the bill needs is to be signed.

While the gravy train ride is not quite over for operations such as online bingo, casino, poker, and sports betting operators, in the UK and Ireland, the net is certainly closing in. New tax benefits for the bingo crowd, could not as badly materially affect British operators in the online game. So, there is something for these operators to look forward to – being taxed is not all doom and gloom.

It is a very sad but true fact that many land-based bingo halls in the UK have already gone the way of the Dodo, and no longer exist any more. Historic Bingo halls were often once, dance halls, cinemas, and even theatres, and many have a particular – even art-deco – charm of their own. We see these closure taking place regularly, and although this short piece is not really supposed to be about land-based bingo, we though to use it as a platform to at least say something before they are all gone.

Another sad but true fact is that the Government in the UK sees fit to tax this "soft gambling" activity, more than it does for casinos. Casinos as we know, offer some very high-roller games, and yet pay less tax. Online bingo and casinos in the UK, have been burned by customs and excise before, and have retreated into the safe harbours of offshore, white listed territories. UK land bingo halls don’t have this choice. One cannot simply pick up the largest bingo hall in London, with some gigantic crane, and plop it down upon Alderney. Online bingo on the other hand is an extremely portable business.

Bingo halls in the UK offer a surprising, and barely surviving, legacy of valuable architecture. They were once the pumping heart of many a community too. It has been nigh near impossible for many to keep up with the taxes required, as well as compete against online site, which offer a ton of free bingo, massive cash and tangible prizes, as well as hosts of fantastic promotions.

As well at the tax situation, and the threat posed by online bingo, halls in this country have seen steadily declining audiences since the 1980’s. Then round about 2006 a smoking ban was introduced, and all of these factors together have rung a death knoll for many.

Playing bingo online has completely transformed this game, not only in terms of delivery, but by the sheer variety of games that can now be played. These games can be played 24r/7, 365 days a year, and many die-hard fans of bingo clubs now prefer to play online. The convenience factor plus the fact that most people keep up with advances in technology, has also attracted a whole new demographic of bingo player.

It is not all bad news however, while some historic building that once housed hives of bingo fans have gone the way of the Dodo. Others are being revamped and given a new lease on life. Some have re-emerged as supermarkets, shopping malls, nightclubs and other venues, so while the buildings do remain, it is only the game that has changed.

The online gambling industry is still moving in the right direction, and this direction is up. In other words the industry is still generating a great deal of turnover, as well as showing positive growth. It is considered to be a mainstream industry, and has become vital to the financial welfare of quite a few small, as well as politically independent nations that are close to the UK.

These are the offshore sites where servers for online gambling sites are licensed and kept, which has had the knock on effect of investments in infrastructures which maintain sizeable internet operations. These are regulating and licensing jurisdictions which have opened their doors to the industry in return for lower taxes. The result of this is that most online operations – even the big guys like William Hill, have taken these ops out of the UK and re-located them to places such as Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Malts, Alderney, and more recently Jersey in the Channel Islands.

Small, politically independent states such as these have come to depend to a great extent on the taxes the industry generates, as well as the employment, and growth opportunities it creates. While the online gambling industry does have its ups and downs, it also has an astonishing ability to roll with the punches. Many of the well-established online gambling concerns have had to reinvent themselves. And have done so in their efforts to survive, but what about British land Bingo, it seems to be taking a turn for the worse?!

There have been some serious changed in the gambling industry when it comes down to British tax law. And the one industry that appears to be worst affected is that of bingo. New taxes have been imposed on certain activities run by these business, which sees a recent hike to 20% on slot games in bingo halls. This poses a serious threat to the industry as a whole, but is an even bigger problem for smaller concerns.

Things started to go pear-shaped for this industry around 2005, and since then 150 of these clubs have closed down.

There is a real concern that this game may go completely extinct, which is rather sad rally considering it has become a big part of British culture. We have the Chancellor of the Exchequer to thank for the demise of this Great British game, as things stand now George Osborne could be the one to go down in history for killing the game. Bingo employs 13 000 people, but this also seems to mean nothing to him.