Tombola Bingo is one of the most fun packed and innovative online bingo sites you will ever find. They have the perfect balance of exciting games, impressive jackpots and superb promotions combined with the friendliest bingo community you could ever wish to be part of. This month we talk to Sean Hanna the affiliate manager at Tombola Bingo to find out just what it takes to run Britain’s biggest online bingo site.

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What is the history of Tombola Bingo?

Tombola Bingo and its associated companies have been involved in bingo for 50 years. One company has been the leading supplier of bingo tickets to traditional bingo clubs since the 60’s and another company has sold free newspaper and TV game cards all over the world so you could say the company is steeped in bingo!

Then when online bingo first begun we partnered with the Sun newspaper in 2006 and ran and managed Sun Bingo. Then we decided to go it alone in 2008 as Tombola Bingo. Since launching bingo on Tombola Bingo.co.uk we have become the Britain’s biggest bingo site with more daily players than any other site.

Tombola Bingo recently became the new sponsor of Emmerdale, can you tell us a bit about the sponsorship?

We are thrilled to be the new sponsor of Emmerdale, Emmerdale is one of the UKs most popular TV shows and we are the UK’s most popular bingo site. Emmerdale revolves around the village community and Tombola Bingo revolves around our chat community so there are quite a few similarities.

The big thing for us was that we could get our players involved in the creative; they had a great time appearing in the sponsorship bumpers and said they were pampered like stars. Since the sponsorship began we’ve had a fantastic response from the players with many of the players who appeared in the ads telling everyone they know to watch Emmerdale to see them!

Luckyjaks had this to say about the day “Hiya, I would like to say a BIG thank you to Tombola Bingo for giving me the rare opportunity to take part in such an unforgettable experience. Meeting other players and CM’s and being able to a face to a name was brill. The day was full of fun things to do which kept us all entertained, I can’t wait for my grandkids to grow up so I can show them how nanny was a star for the day…lol Once again thank you to Tombola Bingo and all the staff for making a little wish come true…An experience I will never forget… Luckyjaks xxx”

Tombola Bingo has had a great couple of years winning awards all over the place, can you tell us about these?

Well our most recent awards were won at the BingoPort Player’s Choice Awards in January. We won best game innovation for Bingo Roulette – one of our exclusive games, most popular bingo site and most cash prizes won.

We were thrilled with the innovation award as this is one of Tombola Bingo’s strong points as we design and manage every game in-house (a rarity in the online bingo industry). The other two awards were monitored through BingoPorts Bingo trends data rather than votes so it was also great to be recognised as having more players than any other site and also paying out more money than any other site in 2009.

Tombola Bingo uses its own proprietary software, what advantage does this give you over the competition?

The main advantage is that it gives us total control over the players’ experience, if we see a way of improving a game we can make a change quickly. It also means that we can develop games that are exclusive to Tombola Bingo. Some of the exclusive games we have launched include Cinco – the no skill card based game, Bingo Roulette, Hamster Race and Bingo 50 – Bubble Wrap Bingo. And of course with these games being exclusive to Tombola Bingo you won’t find them on any other site!

In your opinion what makes Tombola Bingo Bingo stand out from the crowd?

Firstly our gaming software is unique to Tombola Bingo so you won’t be able to find another bingo site online the same as us with a huge range of unique games. We recently won Best Online Bingo Innovation at the BingoPort Players Choice Awards for Bingo Roulette highlighting one of our key strengths. Being the biggest site also means that we have a fantastic chat community with over 40 chat rooms and over 100 chat room moderators. Finally we also offer all players a free daily game which is currently called Lucky Pick. Over £20,000 is won every week and the top prize is £500! Plus we’re launching a brand new free game in February called Treasure Map.

Why should players choose Tombola Bingo over the competition?

We offer a huge range of innovative games that are exclusive to Tombola Bingo, a thriving chat community, a free daily game and £3 million won every week by our players. These are just four great reasons which really differentiate us from what’s out there in the market. We’ll also match new player’s first deposit up to £25.

What games are available at Tombola Bingo?

We offer all the usual online bingo games including bingo 90, 80 and 75. Plus last year we launched bingo 50; this original game firstly uses bubble-wrap rather than a dabber so an online finger pops off your numbers as they are called out. The other innovative feature is that you decide how much you want to stake (between 25p and £1). Everyone has the same number of tickets so if you choose to stake 25p you’ve got just as much chance of winning as someone who has staked £1, you just get a smaller prize if you win.

Our other exclusive games include the hugely popular Cinco. To play Cinco you buy a hand of cards (up to 5 hands), the dealer then deals a pack of cards and each time one of your cards is dealt you get a chip on that card. First one to get a chip on all their cards wins! Cinco also has some great jackpots, if your cards are the first five cards to be dealt you could win £20,000.

Another big game is Bingo Roulette which works along a similar theme to Cinco expect that it’s a Roulette Wheel. You place chips on the table then take them off as your numbers are called from the roulette wheel. First one to clear their chips form the table wins! Jackpots go up to £10,000. Bingo Roulette is fast becoming one of our most popular games on the site

Other games include Hamster Race where you place bets on which hamster will win the race, Roller-Coaster where you have to get all the balls in your carriage, Bandit which is a community based slot game and Battleships where the first person to sink their battleships wins!

What is the largest Jackpot won to date at Tombola Bingo?

£3 million is won every week at Tombola Bingo so we literally have hundreds of jackpot winners every week. You can see them all on our winner’s page along with quotes and pictures.

The biggest jackpot was won by Sarah Cox who won £39,341 playing bingo 90. She was thrilled with her win and said “It was one of those moments in my life I will never, ever forget and when that final number came up that I was waiting for, I really had no idea how it would change my life. I’ll never forget seeing number 79 pop up on screen and then a big ‘winner’ sign across my screen.”

Sarah said the win allowed her to buy new things for her home for the first time and also book a nice holiday for the family. It also gave her renewed self-confidence; she had struggled with her weight for years but after her win decided to get a gastric band fitted. Since then she has lost over three stone and gave her the confidence to appear in Tombola Bingo’s Emmerdale bumpers.

She said “There was no way in the world I would have done anything like this 12 months ago, but now my attitude is ‘I can do it’ so when Tombola Bingo.co.uk appealed for players to appear, I jumped at it. I genuinely have so much to thank them for.”

We often get a few £20,000 winners a month on Cinco. We feature all wins on our site and also have a weekly message board for winners

What promotions do you have running at Tombola Bingo this month?

We’ve got the launch of our new free game Treasure Map and another huge promotion which we’re keeping these a closely guarded secret. All we can say at the minute is that the promotion will be huge and will involve lots of freebies!

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