Online bingo companies tend to fall into one of two categories nowadays: those that specialise in bingo and those that offer bingo alongside other services. Given that Ladbrokes can trace its history as a bookmaker back to as early as 1886, it’s fair to say that they very much fall into the latter category.
Though they are best-known for their sportsbook, they’ve developed their offerings to become one of the biggest and most all-encompassing online operations in the United Kingdom. We’ll delve into the current situation at Ladbrokes later on in this article, but for now we’ll just point out that they are a veritable behemoth when it comes to online gaming.
Their decision to launch a bingo arm pre-dates the company’s merger with the Gala Coral Group, but it certainly didn’t harm their cause when they linked up with one of the biggest names in the game. The fact that they’re such a huge name in the world of bookmaking doesn’t hurt you as a customer either. You can actually collect your winnings in any of the company’s high street shops, plus there are numerous promotions and deals available on a regular basis. If you’re the sort of player that likes to stick with the household bingo names then Ladbrokes might just be the company to tempt you to give a different one a go. Read on to find out more about what they’ve got on offer.
Bingo Games
Ladbrokes used to be on the Virtue Fusion network, but in 2020 the company moved its bingo over to the Electracade network. Electracade, of course, used to be known as Cozy Bingo and was bought out by GVC Holdings, the company that owns Ladbrokes. This might well help to explain why the decision was taken to change the network, given that so much of the online betting industry is about companies working together.
Here’s a look at some of the bingo rooms that you can expect to find on the Ladbrokes Bingo site:
The Treehouse
Much like the rest of the Ladbrokes site, the bingo rooms follow the pattern of being ‘part of the house’. The Treehouse is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and is a 75 ball room with all of the usual chances to win.
The Attic
90 ball bingo is perhaps the most popular version of the game in the United Kingdom, so it’s no surprise to see Ladbrokes offering a few version of it for your enjoyment. The Attic is open from 8am until 2am seven days a week and also features a Community Jackpot.
The Bedroom
Doesn’t all of the most fun happen in the bedroom? It’s also where you’ll find the action at any time of day, which is reflected in the 90 ball room being open from 8am until 2am, giving you plenty of time to buy tickets and get tucked in.
The Living Room
This is a networked room that’s open every minute of every day. Tickets start from as little as 1p and there are also regularly games like Buy 1 Get 1 Free to keep you interested.
Garage
No self-respecting party home owner would live somewhere without a garage. Garages, of course, are where you’d find fast cars, so this is the room to head to if you’re a fan of speedy bingo. Open from 12pm to 12am every day of the week, you’ll want to head here if you like your bingo played high octane, with 30 ball bingo on offer.
Friends Bingo
There’s nothing quite like a licensed bingo room to get people interested, with the Friends Bingo room promising links to the TV show of the same name. You can play 90 ball bingo under the watchful eye of Ross, Joey, Rachel and co, with the Central Perk Jackpot offering a nice little extra prize.
Side Games
As we’ve already mentioned a number of times, Ladbrokes is a behemoth of an online gaming company. It goes without saying, therefore, that there is so much more that you’ll be able to do with your account than simply play bingo. For starters, when you open a bingo room you’ll see that there are plenty of slots to choose from on the righthand side of the screen.
Because of the relationship between GVC and Playtech, many of the games are the same ones you’d have found when it was on the Virtue Fusion network. This includes licensed games such as Monopoly Slingo and The Chase.
There are other, bigger slot options available by heading to the ‘Slots’ tab at the top of the Ladbrokes website. There’s another tab next to that labelled ‘Gaming’ that will give you the opportunity to spend some time playing the likes of roulette, Bing Banker Slot and Cash Volt.
In the days of Ladbrokes being a Virtue Fusion site, you couldn’t search for games and slots that were exclusive to Ladbrokes. That is no longer the case, however, and there is an ‘Exclusives’ tab when you head into both the Gaming and Slots section of the website. If you’re the sort of person that likes to play something individual then this is where you’ll want to head to.
Banking
When it comes to your banking options, you’ll find that Ladbrokes run them in the same way whether you’re using their sportsbook or their bingo. You’ll be able to register up to ten different payment options on your account, making life much easier for you. Whichever method you opt for, you’ll find that there’s a minimum withdrawal amount of £5, the same minimum number that you’ll have applied when you make a deposit. There are different minimums if you use alternative currencies to Sterling.
As for the various payment methods, they are numerous. Ladbrokes is such a massive company that they’ll take pretty much anything you can think of, though it’s worth bearing in mind that you’ll only be able to use certain payment methods if you’re banking via your mobile. These are limited to PayPal, NeTeller, Skrill, PaySafe and debit cards. The likes of Trustly, bank transfers, Giro Pay and entropay are available as additional payment methods if you bank via your desktop computer.
About
Ladbrokes as a company was formed in 1886, as we mentioned before. Back then it was as a commissioning agent for horses that had been trained at Warwickshire’s Ladbroke Hall, from which it gets its name. The company has been grown year-on-year ever since then, with purchases such as the 1989 acquisition of Vernons Football Pools and the 1998 purchase of Coral. They had to sell their rival bookmaker the following year after the government’s Monopolies and Mergers Commission found that the combination of the two was an anti-competitive move. They did finally manage to get the deal over the line in 2016, by which point Coral had become the Gala Coral Group.
The gambling industry is a constantly evolving one, of course. Almost no sooner had the merger of Ladbrokes and Gala Coral Group gone through and a new company called Ladbrokes Coral Group plc been formed in November of 2016, a new takeover deal was in the pipeline. Apparently GVC Holdings had attempted to buy Ladbrokes just before the takeover of the Gala Coral Group, but when that went wrong they were forced to delay their attempted purchase until a later date. That later date was December of 2017 when a deal that could rise to £4 billion was agreed. That’s relevant and important when it comes to their bingo operations because GVC Holdings already own another of the nation’s favourite bingo companies, Foxy Bingo.