Listen to this article:Clackmannanshire is well known as the smallest historic county in Britain, hence its nickname of ‘the Wee County’. At just 61 square miles, it isn’t exactly teeming with options for bingo players, apart from the online bingo sites. However, there is good news for residents of Alloa who don’t want to travel far to enjoy a game of bingo, as one of the town’s music venues has been granted a license to host gaming.
The Auld Gambling Hoose applied for a gambling license as more and more people were calling for it to host bingo nights. The venue, located on Mill Street, used to be Premier Bingo, but it went into administration, and the new owners turned it into a live music hall.
However, following demand from residents to bring bingo back to the town, a license was applied for and granted. The club was hosting bingo games on Monday evenings, when they are unlikely to be hosting a gig, and the new license will enable them to run more games throughout the week.
The Alloa Bingo Club released a statement saying:
“Whilst being on site for some of our early works, we got absolutely badgered by passers by about reopening for bingo again. Based on the extremely low numbers of people playing bingo at the club over the last five years, this was something we were not keen to do. But we relented. Our expectations were very low. In fact, we fully expected we would have to cancel after four weeks due to poor attendance.
We have been absolutely blown away by the number of people turning up week after week. Clearly, there is still a demand for bingo in Alloa and not one Monday goes by without more badgering from you guys about opening more days.”
The terms of the current license allow the venue to host bingo games, but they are constrained to a weekly prize limit of £2,000.
The full license will allow them to offer larger prizes, but before launching more games, there are two issues that need to be solved. First, the heating at the Auld Gambling Hoose has been unreliable, but the club says that repairs are underway. Secondly, they will need to hire more staff to help run the bingo games.
The club added:
“Based on the incredible support from you guys and the clear and obvious demand for more bingo at the club, we applied for a full licence. We are delighted to announce that this has been granted. So, we have started planning to test out a couple of more days of bingo in the new years.”
The old Premier Bingo closed in August 2023 together with venues in Cowdenbeath and Perth when the company suddenly went into administration. At the time, the closure was announced with a Facebook post, which simply said that the closure was due to “circumstances outwith our control”.
The closure came after the operator suffered during the Coronavirus pandemic. It came very close to closing in 2020, and in 2021, Тhe Bingo Association launched a campaign called “Save Scottish Bingo” to try to raise money to help the industry.
Miles Baron, CEO of The Bingo Association in Scotland, said in April 2021:
“As a result of thousands of bingo players responding to our call for support, the Bingo Association in Scotland has recently been informed that our Bingo is my Lifeline campaign has been successful, and all licensed clubs in Scotland will receive a one-off grant in recognition of the challenges caused by their sustained closure over the last year.”
While ultimately Premier Bingo may have had to close its venues (it still operates online), with the latest announcement from the Auld Gambling Hoose, it seems that bingo playing residents of Alloa will soon be calling ‘House’ in the Hoose once again.
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