Buzz Bingo is a chain of

bingo Bingo or B-I-N-G-O may refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * Bingo, a game using a printed card of numbers ** Bingo (British version), a game using a printed card of 15 numbers on three lines; most commonly played in the UK and Ireland ** Bi ...

clubs in

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owned by

Caledonia Investments Caledonia Investments plc is an investment trust company based in London, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. Operations Caledonia is a self-managed investment trust. It takes significan ...

. It has 92 locations. Formerly operating as Gala Bingo clubs, they were re-branded as Buzz Bingo clubs in September 2018, whilst the Gala brand continues to run its own

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and

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offerings under the ownership of Entain plc.

History

Buzz Bingo has undergone several changes in ownership and branding including through acquisitions. They were originally

Coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

branded, a division of

Bass plc Six Continents was a large British-based hotel and hospitality business which was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. History The company was formed in June 2000 when the brewing business of Ba ...

. In 1983, there were 22 clubs and 24 located in their

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holiday camps. The ownership acquisitions included a chain of 80 bingo clubs from

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for £18.2 million in 1983, followed by another 30 by purchasing

Zetters Leisure Sportech PLC is an online gambling and entertainment company headquartered in the United Kingdom. The company is traded on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol SPO.L; the stock is a component of the Alternative Investment Market. The comp ...

for £23 million in 1988.

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's chain of 74 bingo clubs were added in 1991 for £147 million. This merger with Granada led to the company rebranding as Gala Clubs later that year. Gala was officially launched on 17 October 1991 when 17 clubs re-branded and launched a new image. There followed a series of further acquisitions under the Gala brand, including 17 clubs from Ritz in July 1998, 10 clubs from Jarglen in March 2000 and 27 Riva Bingo Clubs from First Leisure for £90 million in April 2000. Towards the end of 2000, Gala then began a series of expansions outside of their bingo operations, with casinos from the

Hilton Group Ladbrokes Coral is a British gambling company founded in 1886. Its product offering includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. The business is split into two divisions, UK and International. UK operations are c ...

in December 2000 and the Jamba Online business in 2001. This was later followed by a series of private equity sales of the company starting in February 2003 to the private equity firms Candover and

Cinven Cinven is a global private equity firm founded in 1977, with offices in nine international locations in Guernsey, London, New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, Luxembourg, Madrid, and Hong Kong that acquires Europe and United States based corporat ...

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bought a stake in the company in August 2005, which valued the business at £1.89 billion. In October 2005, Gala acquired Coral Eurobet for £2.18 billion and changed its name to Gala Coral Group, creating the United Kingdom's third largest bookmaker and largest bingo operator. By 2015, Gala Coral was acquired by its rival Ladbrokes, but the Gala Bingo clubs were not part of the merger, and were subsequently sold to

for £241 million in December 2015. This meant that the clubs used the Gala brand under licence from the Ladbrokes-Coral group and decided during 2018 to re-brand as Buzz Bingo.

Operations

Buzz Bingo now operates all the clubs previously on the High Street as Gala Bingo and launched its own

, buzzbingo.com offering shortly after the rebrand was completed.

References

{{reflist, 30em

External links

Buzzbingo.com
Bingo Gambling companies of the United Kingdom Online gambling companies of the United Kingdom Gambling companies established in 2018 2018 establishments in the United Kingdom