No deposit bingo concept has officially vanished

Wink Bingo’s announcement about dropping their £15 no deposit bingo bonus could be seen as the final confirmation of the trend’s end.

The online bingo industry got a big push little over two years ago, with the no deposit bingo offer probably responsible to the rapid growth of player base in the UK. Players, who were at first deterrent of the online bingo industry, seeing it more as a type of gambling than fun bingo playing, found the option to open an account and play without the need to deposit anything very appealing. The online bingo sites, which at the time were also making the transition to non-download platforms, marketed themselves aggressively with no deposit bingo offers, with Wink Bingo probably signaling the beginning of this strategy little over two years ago, offering a £15 bonus.

The basic idea was simple – the players can sign in to try the new site with no strings attached, get to know the website and if they like it – they deposit and become full members. Although this money was not cashable to the bonus receiver, these amounts added to the pots played for in the online bingo sites, increasing the payouts and thus making the games far more attractive, contributing to the website’s growth as well as the entire industry.

Many online bingo sites then followed the same strategy Wink Bingo took and offered their similar bonuses and through the course of 2008 this became the standard, and all major sites like Mecca Bingo and Gala offered the same. In the second half of 2009, however, this has changed – most of the site began to drop the no deposit bonuses, and new bingo sites that launched, like Costa Bingo, Cheeky Bingo or Moon Bingo, which were aggressively marketing themselves, did so without the introduction of a no deposit bingo offer. What happened?

Well, for one, the effect of these bonuses became lower – most of the players already got to know of the online bingo concept and there was less need to give them a “test drive” of the website. In addition, the increasing amount of online bingo sites created what is referred to as bonus hunters – many players joined the bingo sites just to play the bonus without depositing anything. Had they won a big prize, they would fund their account in order to cash their winnings but if not – they’d just go to the next site and claim another bonus. The free bingo games that began appearing in most bingo sites allowed the operators to still offer a free bingo offer to members, while eliminating the issue of bonus abusing.

More and more sites replaced their no deposit bingo offers in past six months with the offer of free bingo games regularly. It is symbolic that Wink Bingo, who had a big role in forming the trend of no deposit bingo two years ago, are the ones marking pretty match the end of the very same trend.
Wink Bingo will stop offering their £15 no deposit bonus on March 1st, with another week still left for this offer. If anyone is looking to take advantage of it, they should register with Wink Bingo this week.

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