Full house: Gen-Z flocks to bingo halls in latest leisure trend
Following in the wake of analogue trends including vinyl, polaroid cameras and Nokia phones, Gen Z Brits could be swarming into bingo halls as they take their retro obsession back to the 1950s.
Buzz Bingo, which operates at 79 sites in the UK including five in London, claims interest from young people is driving its post-pandemic survival.
Half of its 175,000 new players in the twelve months to September 2025 were under the age of 25, and takings suggest young players are most interested in themed nights and ticketed events, with young members 30 per cent more likely to show up for these.
This suggests the bingo obsession is part of a wider swing towards experiential leisure – which also includes escape rooms and mini golf.
After enduring a “tough” period during the pandemic, Buzz Bingo noticed its consumers getting younger and younger, chief executive Dominic Mansour told City AM.
Initially, Buzz Bingo’s younger customers “came once and didn’t really come back”, Mansour admitted. But the firm has since invested in upgrading its tech in a bid to bridge the gap between this retro activity and the digital entertainment more familiar to Gen Z.
“The usage of the iPads is at record levels. About 70 to 72 per cent of bingo play is now on a tablet, rather than what you probably imagine in your mind – with a dabber and a bit of paper,” he said.
Rank group, the operator of Mecca Bingo, is also reporting growth, having notched an 11 per cent increase in net gaming revenue in last year’s third quarter after seeing increased interest in its in-person and online offerings.
Young people are also opting for bingo over nightclubs because it offers a more secure night out, Mansour claims.
He said: “It’s a secure, safe place. When you break the demographic down even deeper, we get a lot of people from different communities – [like] LGBTQ+ communities – for the same reason, because it’s a safe place where people feel they can be themselves.”
Bingo a ‘soft’ form of gambling
Mansour was aggressive in his bid to warn the government against a gambling tax raid at last year’s budget, claiming this would have forced him to shut a “very large” number of bingo halls.
Now this threat has passed, Mansour insists bingo offers a “soft” form of gambling. He explains: “Firstly, there’s a finite number of tickets you can buy, so you can’t spend big amounts of money. Secondly, you’re going to have to wait until tomorrow to come back to chase your losses, by which time the emotions burn off and you’ve pulled yourself together.”
Research suggests young Brits see gambling as a social opportunity rather than a chance to win big. 18-24 year-olds are the demographic most likely to gamble “because it’s fun” (87 per cent) and “to be sociable” (55 per cent), and least likely to chase lucky payouts, according to a Gambling Commission survey.
Isabelle Shepherd, a partner at city accountancy HaysMac, said bingo is popular among young Brits because, beyond taking away a pressure to drink, engagement in a common activity relieves social anxiety.
“A lot of that generation, going through Covid, spent a lot of time indoors and missing out on social interaction,” she told City AM.
It is no coincidence that the popularity of experiential leisure and the boom of influencer culture came at the same time, Shepherd says, as this allows young people to create content while socialising.
“If you’re in an environment like bingo you are much more likely to generate the opportunities to create that content you can post to your friends or create a following [with],” she said.
Experience-based leisure could be plateauing
Pubs are responding to the boom in experience-based nights out by investing more in small-scale entertainment like quizzes and shuffleboards in a bid to tag onto this trend, she claimed.
But Shepherd warned the wider boom in experience-based leisure, which began long before the recent resurgence of bingo, means its growth might run out.
The acquisition of fairground entertainment brand Fairgame by private equity firm Tenpin could be an early indicator of market consolidation rather than more rapid growth, she said.
“Funding is tight, costs are tight for all of these [hospitality] businesses, and there’s been so many businesses on quite a quick growth trajectory,” she warned.