Gala Test Drives New Strategy Through Bingo Site Launch - 12-30-08

December 30 - Bingo industry commentators raised eyebrows this week over the launch of Gala Coral's brand new online bingo site, Minxy Bingo. What surprised the industry was the fact that Gala made almost no announcement of the new site's launch, uncustomary for a gambling operators that promotes its products and services through practically every media channel in the United Kingdom.

It is believed that the quiet launch of Minxy Bingo before Christmas is Gala's attempt to test drive a new strategy - that of allowing its bingo products to work off another software platform, besides its own. Up until now, all Gala Coral's products worked off the company's proprietary software platform, however with competition toughening up and with Gala being so much in debt, the company may be seriously considering shifting its products to another platform instead of spending millions upgrading its own.

An industry source said: "There is a major question of why they would spend 5 million GBP a year on their bingo technology when they can outsource the contract to a software provider for a small percentage of their gaming profit. When they launched they had an outstanding product but now that are pretty much on a level with their rivals and without substantial expenditure they could slip away."

Indeed, Gala Coral's financial reports have not been particularly encouraging over the past few quarters, showing that the company is getting itself further and further into debt. The industry source noted that the last thing that the company needed at this moment was to spend unnecessary capital on a bingo project. "I'd say that Minxy Bingo is a test for them to see how the numbers stack up with a rival operator, and if they look good, they will be onto Virtue Fusion software within six to nine months," predicted the analyst.

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