What is thought to be the biggest jackpot in the history of bingo, has been won by Soraya Lowell, aged 38, at the National Bingo game and its Platinum Jackpot last Sunday night, receiving £1,167,795. The moment Mrs. Lowell realized that she had won; she decided to split her winnings with her next-door neighbor.

“I must be on a lucky run just now but I still can’t get my head around that amount of money. It just won’t sink in at all”, says Soraya. The proud mother of four children has decided to share half of her earnings with her neighbor.

A woman from Chester, who has requested not to be named, took home a £23,000 bingo jackpot from a Mecca Bingo Club in Brook Dale Place. The 43-year-old mom won the National Bingo Game prize of £20,000, plus the regional prize of £3,301 and the house prize of £169.

“I couldn't believe it when I found out how much I had won. I thought I might be in with a chance for the regional prize but never thought I'd scoop the national,” the lucky winner commented. “Everyone in the club was congratulating me and there was a great atmosphere.”

Online Bingo goes onboard, as airlines such as British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines and Virgin Airlines offer their passengers a wide variety of mid-air gambling games.

Virgin is the only airline that has its own online games portal, so travelers will be able to continue their online bingo games while flying. The passengers on other companies have to access other websites in order to be able to bet.

Thirty-six years ago, Gill Barton started working as a bingo caller in Solihull, West Midlands. The job suited her since it gave her time to raise her five children while contributing to the economy of her house. Gill was a dedicated worker and in a few years she was promoted to staff training.

However, Gill wanted more and when she turned 50 she told her husband about her new project: opening her own training and recruitment company. “My husband Frank thought I was starting the menopause and being irrational when I said I wanted to start my own business at the age of 50,” she recalls.

Christine Bradfield, a mother of two from Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales, took home this week the world’s biggest ever jackpot of £1.1 million. The 53-year-old bingo player, who started going to bingo halls when she was 18, was in her local club when she won. “It was just like a football match when somebody scores a goal. The place erupted,” Steve Hanley-Locke, deputy manager of the bingo hall, said.

The first thing the lucky winner did after confirming her win in the function room, was calling her husband Ray to tell him the good news.

After several months of campaign and petition letters, bingo giants Rank and Gala Coral finally obtained the necessary backup for a tax reform. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport of the United Kingdom has informed that it will start to pressure chancellor Alistair Darling for a bingo tax reduction before this year’s budget is released.

Currently, bingo companies have to pay two different taxes: VAT, 17.5 percent, and Gaming Duty, 15 percent. This heavy taxation plus the falling in admissions due to the smoking ban and the Gambling Act, has caused several bingo venues to close and many are experiencing financial problems.

Pauline Clark, a 62-year-old pensioner from Bristol, has become the first bingo player in Britain to win £1 million. She played against 15,000 other players in an online bingo site and gambled only 60p. She changed traditional bingo for online bingo just two months ago.

“I'm absolutely shocked - my heart is still racing,” the lucky mother of two said. “I've been playing bingo for years and I had always thought I would win big. In fact, I won £6,000 in the National Game 12 years ago. I just wish my husband was around to see it.”

A lucky pensioner saw many years of bingo games finally rewarded when she scooped £100,000. The woman, who asked for her name not to be revealed, was playing at the Mecca Bingo Club in Brook Dale Place, Chester. She considered the prize a late birthday present since she turned 69 in June.

The bingo fan won the National Bingo Game of £100,000 plus the club prize of £226. She completed a “full house” in 41 numbers, which was the lowest call in 500 clubs across the nation. The pensioner said she has been a member of the Mecca Club since 1992 and plays very often.

A woman, who was only identified as Rebecca, was the lucky winner of a £10,000 bingo national jackpot. She was playing bingo with her family at the Leeds-based Gala Bingo Club in Stonebridge Lane, a club that is known as a lucky venue due to the several prizes it has awarded.

The 29-year-old player, said she went to the Club with her family as a present to her grandmother, who turned 67 on that day and usually plays there. The winner also confessed that, although she likes bingo, in the past three years she has only played twice.

The facilities of the Athletic Echagüe Club are now receiving a different kind of crowd, one that will not be seeking the practice of any sport, but will be anxious to gamble, and gamble in chance games.

That is because the society room of Echagüe has been formally transformed into a new headquarter, although temporary, of bingo, which will provisionally leave its usual location so that the casino can function there. The casino is moving from the place where it was, the Mayorazgo Hotel, because it has now been acquired by the international chain Howard Johnson.