Daily Fail for Bingo Newspaper Article

Late on Wednesday evening, the Daily Mail website published a news article that claimed a number of online bingo sites and casinos have been targeting vulnerable women through ad campaigns that feature kittens and cupcakes. The article is less than complementary towards online bingo and online gambling as a whole but hang on, isn’t this the same Daily Mail that partners with Pink Ribbon Bingo?

The slanted story focuses on Sheila, a 62 year old redundant marketer who blew £26,000 playing online bingo at Kitty Bingo. The story also tells how 65 year old hubby, Andrew knew his wife played bingo and even saw letters from the bank telling him that his wife had blown their savings and racked up a £6,000 overdraft but did little about it.

Yes, it is awful when people develop problem gambling habits but it’s not Kitty Bingo’s fault that Sheila blew the family savings. Kitty Bingo has a number of industry recognised processes such as spending limits and self exclusion facilities. However, if you were to read the Daily Mail’s take on things (which you can do here), you would think that the team at Kitty Bingo operated outside of the law and outside of what is acceptable.

One particular game that the story claims is targeting vulnerable women with cute images is the IGT online slot game – Kitty Glitter. However, this is no more cute and cuddly than Fluffy Favourites or Sugar Train, both of which can be found available to play at Pink Ribbon Bingo, which the Daily Mail has a partnership with. Pink Ribbon Bingo also features slots from family TV shows like X-Factor. The entire article stinks of hypocrisy.

The so-called news story goes on to say that problem gambling has become a growing issue with middle-class housewives, who are ‘lured by cuddly-looking betting websites’. The author of the news piece was also quick to point out that Kitty Bingo is not UK licensed but the majority of the internet’s most popular and reputable bingo sites operate outside of the UK. Kitty Bingo is actually licensed in Gibraltar, which is a UK approved gambling authority, although not a white listed authority.

Lots of cute and cuddly games at Pink Ribbon Bingo

We do have to admit that even we find certain marketing campaigns a little poorly thought out, with regards to appealing to problem gamblers or underage gamblers. However, these occurrences are few and far between and they are nearly always either genuine oversights and mistakes that are rectified immediately or they are from cowboy outfits in Curacao or Costa Rica that get shut down before they are a real issue. As a rule, the online bingo industry is doing things fairly and responsibly, and we believe that the Daily Mail’s take on Kitty Bingo and online bingo as a whole is inaccurate and designed to be sensational, as opposed to informative.

We are the first to embrace responsible gambling and we do appreciate that it can be a problem for a minority of players. However, Kitty Bingo is one of the better sites out there and the attack on them was both uncalled for and wildly hypocritical coming from a newspaper that partners an online bingo site of their own, a site that is just as guilty of targeting women as any other.