A bingo game has fought its way into the top 10 top grossing apps at the Apple App Store, against competition from 350,000 apps for the iPad alone and 900,000 in total, as the store enters its fifth year. Bingo Bash has hit the big time, and players will understand why it’s so popular.
The app, which has been the number one grossing app on the iPad in its time, is the child of entrepreneur Sumit Gupta, who launched it in 2010. Within a year, it was earning $3 million a year and by the end of 2012 the company had an annual income was $55 million.
If you fancy a go at Bingo Bash, the app itself is free, but you do have to pay for the virtual coins that you play with. The game can be played on Facebook as well as the iPad, iPhone and Android smart phones.
The team behind the game cut their teeth in social games on MySpace, but the company failed to make much cash despite building popular programmes, and decided to go into gambling.
Gupta reckoned that the big, popular casino games were sewn up, but that friendly old bingo could be sold to a younger generation of digital natives. He said: “It has that [reputation] that it’s for the elders. What we did it was jazz it up.”
The jazzing-up comes in the form of time pressure and real opponents from all over the world, a genuine social element to the game and fresh content all the time as 1,500,000 people a day log on to play the game, with well above 90% of them coming back for more.
Top of the Apple apps tree for money makings is Candy Crush Saga, but the top 10 boasts a couple of other slot or casino apps, making Gupta’s decision to turn to bingo look very clever indeed. If laws allow, the company plans to start up games using real rather than virtual cash in their games – one for all online bingo fans to look forward to.
So if you haven’t given it a go, why not head to Facebook or the App Store and take a look. Be aware though, that if you do you’ve been put in a market segment – that’s right, Silicon Valley geeks have a name for bingo players – you’re part of the ‘pink casino genre’!
Of course, with so many sites, such as 888Ladies, now offering mobile versions of the online game, we wonder how long a free app can stay at the top, when play for real money games are now available!
This post currently has no comments, be the first.
Leave a Comment