Number of people playing online bingo once a week has fallen since last year, reveals survey

March 2020

Number of people playing online bingo once week has fallen since last year, reveals survey: A survey looking at the playing habits of online bingo players has found that there has been a fall in the number of people playing at least once a week. This points to a shift in focus towards consumer safety, according to WhichBingo, who commissioned the research. 

Now in its fifth year, the WhichBingo Annual Report found that in 2019 more than three-quarters of people who played online bingo reported playing at least once a week, a fall of ten percentage points since last year when it was 88%. The number of people playing every day was also down significantly, from 44% to 29%.

In the latest poll, a third of survey participants said they play online bingo ‘several times a week’ (34%), while 15% said they play 'about once a week'. Around one in five play 'every once in a while'. 

The most common duration for playing bingo online was 1–2 hours (32%) – almost the same percentage as last year (31.5%). However, the number of people who play for 30 minutes to an hour has increased to 32.5% from 17% in 2018. 

When asked about the other types of gambling respondents engage in, 57.5% said 'slots' followed by scratch cards (35%), the lottery (26%), horse racing (10.5%) and roulette (9%). Other answers given were blackjack (6%) and sports betting (6.5%)

The survey also found that play on laptops and desktop computers continues to decline, with phone engagement up from 27% in 2018 to 36.5 in 2019. Games played on tablets also saw an increase from 6% to 10%. 

The research also showed that players do not always use the same device to participate - with a third switching between several.

Just like in 2018, when asked which games they spent the most money on, bingo was the top answer, however the numbers have increased  from 49% to 57%. 

Withdrawal of winnings

The most popular winnings value before a player will make a withdrawal, was £50 – with almost a third (32%) saying they would wait to accumulate this amount - down slightly from last year when it was 33%. 

The second most popular marker was £100 with 18% waiting to reach this figure before withdrawing funds - also slightly down on last year (19%) 

The split between men and women playing online bingo remains consistent with previous years, with 78% women versus 21% men – and with 80% aged between 35 - 64.