Pop singer, Robbie Williams, was a winner at a charity bingo tournament hosted by ‘Superbad’ actress Erica Vittina Phillips at Hollywood’s Hamburger Mary’s bar and grill held last week. The 33-year-old singer joined burlesque dancer Dita von Teese on the tournament.

Williams was the first to shout ‘Bingo’ after all his numbers came in and his prize was a Diane Merrick leopard-print handbag. Proceeds from the evening went to a charity helping to fight breast cancer.

Gala Bingo’s online games is the choice among players, according to a survey conducted by a news site, Unluckyforsome in the UK.

The survey, conducted this month, questioned visitors to the site on which online bingo site they played at the most. The results put Gala Bingo in pole position with 19 percent of the vote, usurping its key competitor Mecca Bingo, which only received 5 percent.

A 62-year-old grandmother made bingo history after only 2 months playing online. Pauline Clark, a pensioner and grandmother from Bristol in England won GBP 1 million by achieving a full house in Gala Bingo’s online KerChingo game.

Describing her first reaction to the big win as absolute shock, she said she plans to spend some of her good fortune paying off her children’s mortgages and put up a greenhouse.

New British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced that he would be happy to meet with bingo companies to discuss problems in the bingo industry and the levels of taxation.

Bingo firms have long complained that bingo is taxed twice as VAT is charged on the price players pay for each bingo game (participation fee) while gross profit (the participation fee minus the money paid out in prizes) is also taxed.

The 2nd Annual Online Bingo Summit will be held in London on 25 / 26 September this year. The rise and rise of online bingo has been connected to the rise in broadband penetration, high impact online marketing, the UK smoking ban in bingo halls and word of mouth creating hype around the simple yet fast-paced gambling game.

Phil Fraser, the chairman at this year’s Summit, says: “Increased awareness of online bingo in the mass market, driven by the big land-based bingo brands and media owners’ bingo sites, means that there is still much room for growth.