ICG explores sale of Buzz Bingo amid duty pressures
Private equity firm ICG has reportedly hired advisers to find a buyer for Buzz Bingo, five years after acquiring the operator, as it warns of the impact of UK gambling tax changes.
Buzz Bingo's owner, ICG, has put the operator up for sale and brought in bankers to run a process with prospective buyers, according to a Sky News report covered by EGR.
ICG acquired Buzz Bingo from Caledonia Investments in 2021 and is now understood to be seeking fresh investment that could accelerate the chain's expansion, Sky News reported. Oakvale Capital, an advisory firm regularly involved in gambling sector deals, is said to have been appointed to support the sale.
Buzz Bingo's most recent Companies House accounts show revenue climbing 11% year on year to £241.1m in 2025. The company operates 75 bingo clubs across the UK alongside an online business.
Underlying EBITDA fell 6% to £39.2m over the same period. Management attributed the drop to higher staffing costs, including increases to the national minimum wage and employer National Insurance contributions.
The business also recorded an £18.5m goodwill impairment, which it said followed a reassessment of projected cash flows after the UK's remote gaming duty was increased.
Buzz Bingo chief executive Dominic Mansour told EGR's Power Seat podcast in August that government policy had become "negative to growth" for the sector.
A further rise in machine games duty could add to those pressures. Chancellor John Healey is reportedly weighing a Social Market Foundation proposal to double the rate on Category B machines from 20% to 40% in the upcoming Autumn Budget.
In a Daily Mail column last month, Mansour argued that doubling the duty to 40% would force clubs to shut and put jobs at risk. He wrote that even a smaller increase, to 25%, would leave roughly a third of Buzz Bingo's estate unprofitable, adding that this would threaten the company's investment plans and could lead to club closures.
The warning follows last year's Budget, in which then-Chancellor Rachel Reeves raised remote gaming duty to 40% from 21% and lifted general betting duty to 25% from 15%, while scrapping the separate 10% bingo duty.
Bingo Association chief executive Nicole Garrett has said a further increase to machine games duty would make club closures an "inevitable outcome" for the sector.
EGR has contacted Buzz Bingo for comment on the reported sale process.