Gala Bingo, the privately owned gambling company, is expanding to China. The company has just obtained a license from the Chinese government to open a bingo club in Hebei.
This will be the first of its kind in China. They believe that the bingo club will be the first of hundreds to open in the province since the Chinese have a love of numbers based games. Although Gala Bingo still needs a license from Beijing, they have already secured the property for the club.
They have also recently acquired a bingo club in Italy. Both moves are seen as entry into the market with the hopes of following with bingo online. Gala Bingo already has Coral betting shops in Italy and is looking to expand to other places including South America and the Balkans and well as India, Spain and Greece.
Gala Bingo, like other UK bingo operators, is feeling the effects of the smoking ban, the limit on the high paying fruit machines and the tax laws. Their executives foresee the closing of one hundred bingo clubs, none of them Gala Bingo, across the country in 2008. However, if the situation in the UK continues, some Gala Bingo clubs could also be closing. Gala Coral has offset the losses in the bingo clubs with the profits from their bingo online operations. The expansion into foreign markets is also seen as a way of maintaining profits.