It’s incredible how far the online gambling industry has come in just a couple of decades. From being a distinctly niche activity in its earliest days, it’s grown to become the biggest single gambling sector in Britain today – accounting for 33% of all revenue and generating an incredible £4.5 billion a year. Compare this with the £1 billion a year that traditional casinos generate, and the £368 million from bingo halls, and it starts to put it all into much more perspective.
The Gambling Commission also found in recent research that nearly 50% of Britons gamble with 17% of them gambling online.
So it’s hardly surprising that there has been a gold-rush of online gaming organisations trying to secure themselves a slice of this pie in the face of huge competition. It’s a market where only the strong survive and, to manage it, you need to have a unique and compelling offering to attract players and help you stand out from the crowd.
Of course, it’s not just a matter of attracting players, you need to keep them too. So successful operators in the sector need to offer both great bonuses and equally compelling loyalty schemes as well. But competition is fierce in this area, with all the big players in a constant battle to out do each other and provide the most attractive incentives.
One of the most successful of these companies is Wink Bingo. Owned by one of the largest online gaming companies in the world, 888 Holdings, they’re certainly a major player and have recently taken great strides towards becoming even more successful.
Bingo goes pop art
The Wink Bingo website has recently had a complete refresh and now has a fun and vibrant pop art theme channelling the design styles of famous artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Liechtenstein, who were famous for playing with comic book and commercial art imagery to create a whole new genre of art.
Relying on big, bold imagery and strikingly bright colours, it certainly means that the site stands out the moment you visit in a way that others just don’t. In addition, it’s definitely a style of branding and design that makes the site look fun and approachable – somewhere everyone is welcome and there’s something for everyone.
As well as this new look and feel, there’s also the new Wink Bingo slogan: “You’ve earned it.” In just three words this encapsulates the message that not only are players always welcome, they’ll also be in the running for some pretty impressive rewards too.
You’re welcome to a great joining bonus
Things get off to a great start for new players with the generous bonuses that are available. This means that there’s the chance to enjoy a bonuses as soon as you start playing, but the really big news is that there’s a whole new scheme called Wink Rewards designed to boost loyalty and players receive are made to feel valued as soon as they join.
Because it’s a loyalty scheme, they can then go on to carry on earning the rewards as they play and watch them mount up.
Wink Rewards
It’s once a player has joined up and starts to play that Wink Rewards can really start to add up. That’s because, for every £1 spent on an eligible bingo game, it earns a Wink Reward that can be saved up and used for bonuses and free spins as well being exchanged for vouchers to spend with major retailers. It’s the sort of idea that’s proved to be incredibly successful for the big supermarkets so why not for a bingo site too?
There are a number of ways that players can earn themselves rewards and which will see them steadily accrue.
- Daily Challenges – Each time a player logs on to the site they’ll be able to see what the daily challenge is. Then, if they successfully complete it within the 24-hour period, they’ll earn more Rewards or even bingo tickets to play in the special 1 Million Rewards Room – see below for details. As these challenges change each day it always gives players something new to look forward too each time that they log on.
- The 1 Million Rewards Room – This is a special area of the site which has no less than 1 million Wink Rewards to give away each month. Every day, it has five separate games to play and offers the chance to win a huge Rewards prize which can then be exchanged for more play on the site or retailer vouchers. To make it a little more exclusive, players need to first earn tickets to play and they can do this in a number of ways – although some are also granted at random to a limited number of lucky people.
- Rewarding Wednesdays – To give a bit of a midweek lift, there’s also the special Rewarding Wednesdays promotion. Players who opt in get the chance to play for a special Rewards Chest each Wednesday by fulfilling certain playing requirements. Each chest could contain up to 500 Wink Rewards to give a very welcome bonus.
To go with these new incentives there’s also the Wink Shop, which is the place to go and spend or exchange Rewards and all registered players also have an “Earned It” section in their membership details to help them keep tabs on how many they have.
It’s a rewards scheme that’s already getting some very positive reactions in the online bingo world and almost certainly has competitive sites wishing they’d thought of it first. So check out the site and start building those rewards – if they don’t keep you coming back for more, the quality of the games certainly will.
