eGaming Review January 2014 | Page 108

FEATURE MOBILE STREETS AHEAD G alaBingo.com’s partnership with UK television soap opera Coronation Street should be a winner given the millions of viewers each episode attracts and the oh-sobingo demographic. The operator clearly knows its target audience, hiring two dashingly handsome men (below) to promote the site, who will no doubt turn viewers weak at the knees. Gala also launched a Facebook app encouraging players to upload photos of themselves dressed as their favourite Corrie characters, with the best lookalikes winning Corrie merchandise and cash prizes. For TSG to bother hiring a butcher’s uniform and hat, shaving our head and holding a cardboard cut-out of a bingo ball, those would need to be pretty big cash prizes… STOCKING FILLERS The list of the biggest-selling Christmas toys has become one of the festive season’s traditions in recent years, as the likes of the Cabbage Patch Dolls and Tamagotchis became the musthave item for kids across the globe. All bets are on the Furby Boom to top this year’s cha… ah, as if we care! Those Paddy Power scamps, however, have got the right idea by making a market on adult toys set to fly off the shelves in 2013. There’s no Lego bricks or Barbie dolls in sight in this list – unless that’s what you’re into – but instead the bookie is currently taking bets on which sex toy will top Ann Summers’ sales chart throughout December. Although not exactly surprised, TSG is at a loss as to how traders at Paddys began pricing this up. Did a jiggling joblot of Vibrating Knickers (evens) and Mini Rampant Rabbits (9/2) turn up at the operator’s Dublin HQ, or was the team already adequately acquainted with what Ann Summers’ products have to offer? Whatever you buy your family, folks, just be careful to put it in the right stocking. ELEMENTARY MY DEAR… I t’s fair to say that Labour MP and FOBT denouncer Tom Watson had a tricky few days in November, after he found himself engaged in a Twitter spat with William Hill’s head of public affairs and UK compliance Andrew Lyman. With the new UK gambling bill getting its third reading, Lyman took it upon himself to pick holes in Watson’s arguments surrounding FOBTs and accused the MP of gambling with the livelihoods of 50,000 retail employees. In doing so Lyman inadvertently revealed himself to be in possession of a note Watson 106 issued to a select few MPs and members of the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee (CMSSC). Watson grabbed the chance to turn the argume