GVC Holdings’ Flagship Bingo Brand Unveils ‘Bingo Like a Boss’ Campaign

Gala Bingo has debuted its new digital advertising campaign with the help of E4’s Paisley Billings. Ditching the trials and tribulations of ‘Tattoo Fixers’ for a spot in the online bingo limelight hasn’t exactly got off to a great start for the star, what with a catalogue of complaints appearing on all of the new ‘Bingo Like a Boss’ social media posts.

Developed under the guidance of Antidote, the London-based advertising agency, the new campaign was to bring a new level of ‘sass’ to the online bingo brand, however, it’s bringing quite the opposite.

A total of £13m has been ploughed into the campaign…

…and before it went live, Karina Adrian, Head of Brand Marketing at Gala Bingo had hoped it would go down well: “We wanted to mix up the category and refresh our brand. We are a brand with significant heritage and branding that has stood us in good stead, however, the time felt right to revamp and refresh, bringing us into the roaring 20s.

We want to show a younger audience how fun and exhilarating the game can be, showing there is something for everyone. We’re really excited to unleash Gloria on the nation and bring the sass to bingo.”

However, there are stormy clouds surrounding the campaign with claims of winnings being withheld and bonuses being revoked. Also, many Facebook posts claim that the online bingo site is misleading customers with certain promotions.

Jo Tuff voiced her frustrations on Facebook (along with many others): “Why has (the number of) bonus spins dropped from 10 to 1 from the Voice (slot game), think it’s an insult. Are things really that bad at Gala you afford 10 spins.” Gala bingo replied to numerous complaints with: “We will sort this for you as it should have been 10 spins. Let me reach out to the team to take a look for you.”

It Gets Worse!

On Friday 28^th, the bingo site was down. Scores of players took to Facebook to complain, along with people still waiting on their winnings. Michelle Jayne Littlewood said: “Getting fed up with not getting winnings,” which saw Gala leap into action with this response: “Good Morning, we have found the issue and winnings are now automatically credited upon winning. We do understand there is back log of customers like yourselves that are still waiting for funds and we are hoping this is credited soon. Sorry again for the delay.”

But this is not the case for the majority of people who had won previously. Laura Millar won well over £100 playing the Bingo Beats game earlier in the week. She struck it lucky on more than one occasion but failed to get her winnings. When I approached her, she was keen to spill the beans:

“They (Gala Bingo) were allowing us to deposit money, but for 24 hours if we won (on) the bingo game it was not going into our available funds. Then to make it even more of a disgrace during the night of no-one receiving wins, they decided to get their IT department to revamp the look and images of their website knowing fine well thousands of people were not receiving the money they won!”

Laura continued: “Five days later and I still don’t have my winnings due and customer service has been moved abroad and are a complete nightmare – they don’t have a clue what you are saying to them!”

It’s not only the bingo games that are being affected…

…the slots are too! Markova Desislava, a loyal Gala player was trying her luck on the Sweet Alchemy slot by Play’n GO when she did more than cook up a storm. Landing a win of £290.40p, Markova was ecstatic, but this faded as soon as she realised Gala were withholding her winnings!

Gala was approached for comment, but as of yet, failed to offer any response. Have you been affected? Let us know below.