Bingo! A New Animal Charity Funding Initiative

The new Gambling Act, which came into force in September, and the smoking ban, (which has emptied bingo halls across the country), have led to a growth of interest in online bingo. Advertising for commercial bingo sites has also witnessed huge growth. Now the online and mobile gaming firm Gaming Ventures plc, owner of the charity bingo site BigHeartBingo, has announced that its players have voted Animal Charities as the most popular sector to receive 50% of the revenue generated by their bingo-playing.

Each new player arriving at the BigHeartBingo site selects the charity sector he or she wishes to support. The top three charity sectors currently selected to receive donations from the site are:

Animal Charities (28% of the vote)

Cancer Research (19%)

Children's Charities (18%)

The man who came up with the idea, Jeremy Collis, explains:

"New players all select the charity sector they wish to support and then 50% of BigHeartBingo's net revenue goes to charities in the sector those players have selected."

Charities can apply to receive a share of revenues by registering online with the site. The method of registration is a little obscure but the system is newly launched and the company said today that it is working to make it clearer. We're told that the process of registration at the moment is to follow the 'Charities' link and register using the members sign-up form, (and presumably wait for BigHeart to start pumping).

..A little disconcerting considering this is a gambling website. But charities might feel more reassured knowing that founder Jeremy Collis was formerly Managing Director of Littlewoods Lotteries, the charity lottery division of Littlewoods.