Smoking Ban Causes 62% Dropoff in Scottish Bingo Clubs

Bad news for fans of UK bingo halls. The recent smoking ban in these facilities has led to a huge dent in the profits of the UK’s largest independent bingo operator, the Scottish-based Carlton Bingo.

Annual reports were released days ago, and they showed that pre-tax profits for Carlton Clubs were down an astounding 62 percent on last year. It’s evident that smokers are staying home and either playing online or choosing to do something else altogether.

Peter Perrins, managing director for Carlton Clubs, said that the Scottish Executive (the common name for the Scottish government) should have heeded their warnings and that 2006 was a year that the company would “wish to hide and forget.”

As a result of the downturn in business, Carlton has been forced to close the Tivoli in Edinburgh and the Alhambra in Dunfermline. A small bingo club in Grangemouth was also closed at the start of the year. Perrins added that further closures “could not be ruled out.”

Perrins went on to add, “The Scottish Executive was warned that such a blanket ban would seriously affect smaller community halls where any downturn in admissions would question their viability. Bingo is lost to these communities forever, as the entry costs for any new operator are too high to contemplate.”

Carlton Clubs only experienced a turnover of 4 percent due to the opening of large bingo clubs in Dunfermline and Inverness, but there’s no doubt that the industry is slowly withering on the vine due to the imposed ban.

According to studies, 70 percent of regular bingo players are also smokers. So how does the industry recover from a ban which potentially eliminates all but 30 percent of their business?

Perrins said, “Customer attitudes to smoking are changing as time passes and, equally, the public perception of bingo as a smoke-filled room will change over time, appealing to non-smokers.”

Whether non-smokers will flock to Scottish bingo clubs remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure, online bingo sites are no doubt laughing all the way to the bank.

It’s rather odd to see a law which helps the online gambling industry and hurts the land-based businesses. I guess there aren’t any Indians in Scotland.

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Smoking Ban Causes 62% Dropoff in Scottish Bingo Clubs