Tombola sister sites

Tombola sister sites 2023

When Tombola Arcade was created, its mission was very simple. The Tombola brand had proven itself and was performing well in the market. People were happy to trust Tombola with bingo. Tombola (International) Plc could have gone down the route of adding slots or other casino games to its existing website to expand the brand, but it didn’t do that. It created Tombola Arcade instead. It’s still the same familiar Tombola brand with the same ethos; it’s just that here, it serves slots and other arcade-style original games instead. Just as is the case with Tombola Bingo, every game at Tombola Arcade is exclusive. We’re not sure whether the plan at the time was to evolve the brand into a series of additional Tombola sister sites, but that’s not how things panned out.

You’ll have noticed that Tombola Arcade is the only one of the Tombola sister sites that’s listed here. From a technical point of view, this is correct. Tombola and Tombola Arcade are the only iGaming sites listed on the Tombola (International) Plc UK Gambling Commission licence, so strictly speaking, there are no other Tombola sister sites. If you looked at things another way, though, you could say that Tombola (International) Plc belongs to Flutter Entertainment Limited, and so any of the iGaming brands under that umbrella could also be classed as Tombola sister sites. That would include the likes of Sky Bingo, which would mean that Tombola has competition on its own network. It would also include Paddy Power and Betfair, but as neither Tombola nor Tombola Arcade offers sports betting, there are no competition fears on that front. Tombola Arcade’s unique platform of games would still make it stand out whether all those big-name brands were considered Tombola sister sites or not.

Tombola Information

Tombola operator – Tombola (International) Plc

Telling you that Tombola Bingo belongs to Tombola (International) Plc might sound like one of the most redundant pieces of information on this website, but it’s important to make the distinction between Tombola Bingo and Tombola as a parent company, which also manages Tombola Arcade (and would manage any future Tombola sister sites, too). Tombola is proud to be based in Sunderland and was founded in 1999. In the twenty-plus years since then, the pioneering bingo site has become available across Europe, including the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Denmark. It took a while to get off the ground, though – it was 2005 when the first version of the Tombola website appeared, more than six years since the company was founded. It wasn’t called “Tombola” back then, though – it was the first incarnation of Sun Bingo. Tombola split from the newspaper three years later and struck out on its own.

Tombola (International) Plc claims to be the largest employer of game developers in the North East of England and has approximately eight hundred employees. That’s a drop in the ocean, though, compared to Flutter Entertainment, to whom it now belongs. Flutter swooped for Tombola in January 2022, paying an enormous £402m to acquire the company. At that point, company founder Phil Cronin stepped down from the business. Being a Flutter Entertainment subsidiary means that Tombola is on the same roster as all of the Sky Betting and Gaming brands, plus Betfair, Paddy Power, and a host of other household names. As big as Tombola has been in the past, it’s likely to get bigger in the future.

Tombola review

Tombola Sister Sites Welcome Bonuses

The familiar blue homepage of Tombola couldn’t make its welcome promotion any easier to see – it’s by far the largest headline on there, and it offers players the opportunity to deposit £20 and play with £40 when they join the site – a basic “double your money” offer. £20 is higher than we like to see the bar set when it comes to minimum deposits to qualify for bonus offers, but there’s also good news here – £20 isn’t the maximum amount. £50 is. If you’d prefer to, you could deposit £50 when joining Tombola and play with £100 instead. There aren’t any wagering requirements attached to this bingo bonus, but bonus money itself cannot be withdrawn – only the winnings derived from it can.

Other Promotions

Having given you the good news about promotions at Tombola, here’s the bad news; there aren’t any genuine promotions at the site save for the welcome offer. You might occasionally see time-limited tournaments with special prizes attached to them, but there’s nothing we’d really call a unique promotion. The site is guilty of a little deception on this front, as it has a “promotions” page which appears to be full of content, but when you look closer, you find that these “promotions” are actually the jackpots for each of the Tombola Bingo rooms. There is, however, a “refer a friend” scheme. You can send any of your friends a £5 Tombola Bingo bonus by entering their email address, and then get a £20 bonus when they spend their first £20 with Tombola. You’ll also get a small proportion of their future winnings, which makes this a better “refer a friend” scheme than you’ll find at most iGaming sites.

Top Games at Tombola

Tombola advertises itself as “Britain’s Biggest Bingo Site.” There are several ways of assessing that claim. Tombola comes out as number one with some of them but not with others. It’s definitely popular, though, and a decent proportion of its popularity can be attributed to the fact that all of the bingo games and rooms you’ll find here are exclusive to Tombola – you won’t find them anywhere else on the internet. That also means you’ll never have heard of them before if you’ve never played at Tombola, though, so let’s take a quick look over the top ones.

Britain’s Biggest Bingo: Aside from being both a boast and a motto, “Britain’s Biggest Bingo” is also the name of the most important of all the bingo rooms at Tombola. Such is the prestige of this game that it’s only played once per month and has a minimum guaranteed prize of £100,000. Given that the game guarantees to pay out that amount, you can see why Tombola doesn’t run it more often! Despite the name and the massive prize pot, at the core of this title is a traditional 90-ball game with nothing untoward or revolutionary up its sleeve. The game is played at 9pm on the first of each month, and ticket prices start at 50p. All stakes are added to the prize pot, so if the total amount staked goes above £100,000, so does the prize pot.

Reel Bingo: For the main part, Tombola Bingo manages to avoid treading on the toes of Tombola Arcade by offering similar games. There is the occasional exception, though, and one of those exceptions is Reel Bingo. As the name implies, this game is a combination of slots and bingo. You might think that description sounds familiar, and you’d be right to. It’s exactly how Slingo is described, but this isn’t a Slingo game. Instead, it’s a bingo game with a bonus round. Every time a column or full house is achieved, winning players get to spin a bonus reel and potentially win an additional prize. This is a classic case of an iGaming idea being simple but effective, which happens less often than you’d think.

Free Form: One of the reasons that Free Form is so popular at Tombola Bingo is that it’s free to play, which is always bound to aid the popularity of any game at an iGaming site. The other reason it’s popular is because, despite being free, it offers cash prizes of up to £5000 per game. Players need to register their mobile numbers to take part in this one, and will be sent a unique code to access the game every Monday. Fifteen numbers will be called or marked off during the game, and prizes start at 25p for four purple tiles. If you want to walk away from Free Form with the full amount of £5000, you’ll need to match four red ones.

It’s important to note that Tombola has plenty of original bingo games, and all of them have a unique hook. One of them doesn’t even involve any numbers, which is surely new ground for a bingo game. If exclusivity and original thinking are part of what attracts you to a bingo site, give the bingo page a good browse before signing up – you might just find that Tombola is what you’ve always been looking for.

Customer Support and Licensing

Tombola is generally thought of as a top-tier iGaming site, and that’s reflected in the way it handles customer support. Live chat is the primary method, and the site claims that players face an average wait time of just four seconds before being connected to an agent, no matter what time of day they make their enquiry. Freephone telephone support is also available, and the number to call for that is 0800 29 88873. If you’d rather send an email, the correct address is support@tombola.co.uk – but you might be waiting up to four hours for a reply to your message. Tombola is, unsurprisingly, owned and operated by Tombola (International) Plc, which holds UK Gambling Commission licence 38613. The company has maintained a clean record with the UKGC, attracting no fines or warnings from the regulator.

Withdrawal Speed and Support

The only aspect of Tombola that we’d describe as “disappointing” is its lack of support for modern withdrawal methods. You can’t withdraw to e-wallets at this site, and your preferred instant banking method isn’t supported either. You’re limited to debit cards, or bizarrely, you could ask for a cheque. If you have a Visa debit card, you should get your money within two hours of asking for it. If, on the other hand, your debit card is with Mastercard or somebody else, you’re looking at a wait of between three and five working days.

Final Thoughts on Tombola

Tombola’s originality is what’s made it one of the UK’s top bingo destinations, and it’s only grown stronger since the brand was acquired by Flutter Entertainment. If Tombola wasn’t already performing as a top-tier iGaming brand, Flutter Entertainment would never have been drawn to it. There’s nowhere quite like it for bingo, and some of the original concepts it offers for bingo games and rooms are inspired. The lack of speed and diversity of options when it comes to withdrawals is the only thing we’d mark the site down for – and it would be an easy thing to fix if Tombola ever felt like doing so.

Tombola Sister Sites Player Reviews

Here are the thoughts of your fellow players about Tombola. The reviews are all real, but we’ve paraphrased them to keep them brief.

★★★★★
I’ve been playing at Tombola for quite a while, but it’s gone downhill. I’ve just been through a £20 spend without winning a penny, and it’s been like this for a while. I’m done; goodbye, Tombola. Wayne, April 27th 2023. Source – Trustpilot.

★★★★★
I’ve closed my account with Tombola, and I’d advise you not to join. I joined about three years ago and used to win a bit, but it’s just loss after loss now. Colette, April 25th 2023. Source – Trustpilot.

★★★★★
After being with Tombola for more than ten years, they’ve decided they don’t want me anymore. My deposits have been blocked, and I’ve been asked if I feel like I’m spending too much time on the site. They say I can’t play again unless I send them three months’ bank statements. They’re more controlling than they used to be, and I’ve started to notice the same people winning at bingo all the time, too.Ashley, January 24th 2023. Source – Trustpilot.

★★★★★
I played three games at Tombola Bingo this morning, and the same person won all three of them. That’s suspicious to me – I feel like the site takes from players and gives nothing back.Allison, 22nd 2023. Source – Trustpilot.

★★★★★
Tombola used to be a great bingo site. The games were fair, and bonuses came along regularly. For the past six months, it’s been terrible. I can go through £40 and not get a penny back from it. I go days without wins. I’m seriously thinking about closing my account; it’s gone downhill badly.Carly, April 17th 2023. Source – Trustpilot.