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Revealed: worst areas in England for gamers during lockdown
- South West bottom of the pile for broadband speeds, with five of the ten areas where gamers are most likely to disrupt gameplay
- Cities of London and Westminster the worst area for access to superfast broadband
- Kingston Upon Hull ranks the highest for the best place to play video games online based on average speeds and availability of superfast broadband
New research from comparethemarket.com reveals the areas in England that are the worst for gamers, with gameplay in Central Devon the most likely to be disrupted due to poor broadband speeds.
The research analyses the average download speed (Mbps), superfast broadband availability and the percentage of households’ ability to receive decent broadband.
Gamers based in the South West score the least points when it comes to connection speed, with five out of the top ten worst hit areas in England. With Central Devon having the dubious distinction of being the worst in the country, Torridge and West Devon, Forest of Dean, Somerton and Frome, and Tiverton and Honiton all suffer disruption from poorer broadband speeds.
Some may be surprised to see the Cities of London and Westminster ranked the 10th worst constituency for gamers overall. When it comes to access to superfast broadband, this area takes the last place out of all areas, with a quarter unable to access the very fastest connection. By comparison, in Luton North and Leicester West, superfast broadband availability is 100%.
Kingston Upon Hull is hailed as the best place for gamers, ranking top in the country for average speeds and the availability of superfast broadband. Less than 2% of the area’s households have access to decent broadband. Other cities areas that rank highly for gamers include Grimsby, Gillingham and Rainham in the South East, and Nottingham North in the East Midlands.
Top 10 – England’s worst areas for gamers
|
Rank |
Area Name | Region | Average speed (MBPS) | Superfast availability | Unable to receive decent broadband |
| 10 | Cities of London and Westminster | London | 34.41 | 75% | 0% |
| 9 | Somerton and Frome | South West | 42.75 | 82% | 10% |
| 8 | Harwich and North Essex | East of England | 37.06 | 83% | 9% |
| 7 | Tiverton and Honiton | South West | 31.89 | 81% | 9% |
| 6 | North Herefordshire | West Midlands | 35.09 | 80% | 9% |
| 5 | Penrith and The Border | North West | 36.01 | 81% | 12% |
| 4 | Ludlow | West Midlands | 33.09 | 81% | 11% |
| 3 | Forest of Dean | South West | 31.61 | 79% | 10% |
| 2 | Torridge and West Devon | South West | 34.01 | 81% | 12% |
| 1 | Central Devon | South West | 34.05 | 77% | 12% |
Top 10 – England’s best areas for gamers
|
Rank |
Area Name | Region | Average speed (MBPS) | Superfast availability | Unable to receive decent broadband |
| 1 | Kingston upon Hull East | Yorkshire and The Humber | 137.44 | 99% | 1% |
| 2 | Kingston upon Hull North | Yorkshire and The Humber | 132.15 | 100% | 1% |
| 3 | Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle | Yorkshire and The Humber | 122.24 | 99% | 2% |
| 4 | Crawley | South East | 88.40 | 99% | 0% |
| 5 | Filton and Bradley Stoke | South West | 93.49 | 98% | 1% |
| 6 | Luton North | East of England | 84.10 | 100% | 0% |
| 7 | Morecambe and Lunesdale | North West | 87.70 | 99% | 0% |
| 8 | Great Grimsby | Yorkshire and The Humber | 89.56 | 98% | 1% |
| 9 | Stevenage | East of England | 86.93 | 99% | 0% |
| 10 | Gillingham and Rainham | South East | 86.61 | 99% | 0% |
Holly Niblett, head of digital at comparethemarket.com, commented:
“Lockdown has seen a surge in the number of people relying on the internet for work and leisure. There is a wide disparity in the connection speeds and access to superfast broadband across the country, with people facing a particularly hostile environment in parts of the south west. For many, a reliable internet connection is a lifeline during a difficult time.
“Our new speed-test tool allows people to see how fast their broadband speed is and what better deals and speed is available in their area, because for many households, a fast download speed is a deal-breaker when it comes to choosing a provider. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we have seen a steep rise in the number of customers switching online to the fastest packages during isolation.”
comparethemarket’s tips for improving your broadband speed:
1. Test the speed of your broadband connection
You can run a speed test on comparethemarket’s new speed-checker tool, which enables users to check how long it will take to download a film or game in their area: http://www.comparethemarket.com/broadband/speed-test You’ll be shown both your download and upload speeds.
2. Move your router away from other devices
Keep your router as far away as possible from other electrical equipment and devices that emit wireless signals, such as cordless phones, baby monitors and computer speakers. Try to place your router on a table or shelf rather than on the floor and keep it switched on.
3. Turn off WiFi on devices you’re not using
If you have multiple devices such as tablets and smartphones running in the background, it can slow down your broadband, so try switching WiFi off on these when you’re not using them. You should also avoid carrying out data-heavy tasks like HD streaming, gaming or video calls at the same time as others in your household.
4. Give your computer a spring clean
There are many applications on your PC that could affect your broadband speed, some without you even realising it. A few simple quick fixes include making sure your anti-virus software is up to date, making sure you’re using the latest version of your web browser, such as Chrome, Firefox or Microsoft Edge and clearing your cache and browser history.
For more information on the research, please go to: https://www.comparethemarket.com/broadband/content/best-cities-in-england-for-gamers/
Methodology:
The following table reveals the areas of England where gamers are most likely to disrupt gameplay due to bad broadband speeds.
Data taken directly from the source are in the columns titled Area name, Region, Average speed (MBPS), Superfast availability and unable to receive decent broadband.
To calculate the index we first normalised the data categories individually from 0 to 1 and then summed the results.
On this scale, for
- Average speed – The higher index would be weighted closer to 1 – detailed in the average speed weighting column
- Superfast availability – The higher index is weighted closer to 1 – detailed in the superfast weighting column
- Unable to receive decent broadband – The higher index is weighted closer to 0 – detailed in the Decent broadband weighting column
Total and rankings were determined by the above.
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Jack Watson Brand Manager at Zingo Bingo
Zingo Bingo pushes “community, accessibility” message for National Bingo Week
Brand manager Jack Watson argues bingo’s growth should focus on social play and cultural moments, as the operator plans a free-to-play day on 27 June.
Zingo Bingo is using National Bingo Week to argue that bingo’s next phase should prioritise “community, accessibility and shared cultural experiences” over “innovation for innovation’s sake,” according to Jack Watson, Brand Manager at Zingo Bingo.
In the statement, Watson says technology is reshaping gaming, but that bingo’s core appeal remains social interaction and shared entertainment. He points to sector shifts including mobile-first experiences, personalised content and themed gameplay, while claiming players still want “the shared excitement that comes from participating alongside others.”
Watson also flags nostalgia as a product and marketing lever, describing it as an “instant emotional connection” that can help online bingo feel “both fresh and recognisable.” He adds that operators should focus on presentation—such as “mobile optimisation, themed rooms, contemporary branding and strong community experiences”—rather than changing the fundamentals of the game.
Zingo Bingo said it will mark National Bingo Day with “a full day of free bingo, running from 12pm to 8pm on Saturday 27 June,” allowing players to participate without purchasing tickets. Watson positions free-to-play events as a way to reduce friction for first-time players who may hold outdated views of online bingo.
The company also highlights responsible gambling measures, stating it offers tools including deposit limits, session reminders and self-exclusion.
The post Zingo Bingo pushes “community, accessibility” message for National Bingo Week appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
Boomerang Partners
Boomerang Partners’ case study: how affiliates prepare traffic campaigns around major sports events
On June 11, the FIFA World Cup 2026 starts in North America. It will be the biggest sports event of the year, but the real challenge for affiliates is the rest of the schedule. Throughout 2026, dozens of major tournaments – from football and tennis to Formula 1 – are running almost back-to-back across the sports calendar. This creates one of the most overloaded sports calendars affiliates have worked with in recent years.
Periods like these usually bring some of the highest traffic volumes and strongest audience engagement of the year for affiliate teams.
But data from Boomerang Partners shows that old tactics no longer work. You cannot just launch a campaign on match day and expect good results. Today, teams have to plan their traffic and content weeks before the first game begins.
Regular leagues create more stable traffic
The pressure of this busy schedule became clear during the recent TIME TO WIN affiliate tournament, organized by Boomerang Partners. The project became a live test for different traffic strategies during major events.
The tournament highlighted one clear pattern. Teams like Fumma LTD pointed to the UEFA Champions League and the English Premier League as some of the most reliable traffic drivers. This approach gives affiliates several advantages:
- Fixed schedules make it easier to prepare content and distribute traffic across several tournament stages.
- Recurring match cycles help teams plan campaign timing and prioritize key fixtures well before kick-off.
The real problem in sports is overlapping events. Several big tournaments now run simultaneously across different regions and time zones.
For sports-focused affiliates, this means competing for the same audience attention at the same time. In many cases, the audiences overlap as well. If two major match cycles collide, teams have to choose quickly where to push traffic. Otherwise, they will lose their visibility entirely.
Campaigns must start before kick-off
The timeline for traffic preparation has completely changed. Affiliate teams increasingly start campaign preparation long before the opening match. By the time the live event starts, much of the preparation work is already done.
Preparation now involves several steps. Content teams need to prepare match materials in advance, and media buyers must schedule traffic around the most important fixtures and play-offs.
During the live match, there is no time to fix mistakes. Audiences move too fast between different games. This is especially true when several big matches happen on the same day. If a campaign fails at kick-off, fixing it on the fly is almost impossible.
This is why arbitrage remains one of the strongest sources for sports campaigns. As Sanan Kamilli, CBO at Fumma LTD, noted during TIME TO WIN: “Google PPC works best for sports-focused campaigns because it captures high-intent users actively searching for event-related queries, allowing precise targeting, scalable volume, and strong conversion rates compared to other channels.”
Users searching for specific matches, teams, or betting odds usually show much stronger intent than broader tournament audiences. This makes search traffic particularly valuable during major sports events.
Sports traffic extends beyond the final match
Many affiliates think that sports traffic disappears once the final whistle blows. This is a mistake.
As Fumma LTD noted during TIME TO WIN, sports-driven audiences typically remain valuable for several weeks after the event. The company continues working with these users through retargeting, promoting upcoming matches, and using CRM campaigns to drive repeat engagement and increase lifetime value.
Fumma LTD also highlighted conversion rate (CR), earnings per click (EPC), and player lifetime value (LTV) as some of the key metrics for evaluating traffic quality and long-term profitability in sports-focused campaigns.
For affiliate teams, this creates opportunities beyond a single tournament window. Large finals still generate the biggest traffic peaks, but audience activity often continues into the following match cycles as well.
Using the 2026 Calendar to manage niche traffic
With so many tournaments running back-to-back in 2026, the main difficulty is managing multiple campaigns at once. Content creation, publishing, and ad buying must happen simultaneously.
To help with this, Boomerang Partners launched the Sports Marketing & Betting Calendar 2026. This tool gathers major leagues, global tournaments, and niche events in one place.
For teams like Paradise Media, this centralized schedule solved a major workflow problem. As the company noted during TIME TO WIN, football still accounts for more than 80% of online sports betting activity, so having all World Cup match days, groups, and teams in one place helps speed up research and campaign preparation. To make their workflow faster, the team also combines the calendar with different AI and LLM tools to gather information and cross-check with the calendar to enrich their content, said Mehdi, Director of Affiliates at Paradise Media.
Niche sports also play an important role during quieter periods between major football tournaments. They may not generate the same traffic volume as top leagues, but they help affiliates maintain publishing activity and keep audiences engaged throughout the year.
For many teams, this is no longer just about traffic volume. Covering niche events also helps build authority and positions affiliate platforms as more consistent sports sources outside the biggest football peaks.
A structured calendar always beats reaction
The main takeaway from the market is simple: sports marketing is no longer about quick reactions. 2026 requires good coordination, pre-made content, and smart scheduling across overlapping tournament cycles.
The strongest affiliate teams are already moving toward structured, calendar-based strategies where preparation starts weeks before kick-off and continues well beyond the final match.
About Boomerang
Boomerang Partners is a rapidly growing global marketing agency offering a wide range of services. Boomerang Partners is an Official Regional Partner of AC Milan. In 2024, it launched the inaugural Golden Boomerang Awards – a global tournament for affiliate teams. More than 400 affiliate teams participated in the second season of the tournament in 2025. Partners of the Agency launched six new products in 2024-2025, contributing to a nearly 1.5-fold increase in product users.
The Agency’s clients’ portfolio contains 10+ brands offering affiliate and entertainment services across multiple markets in compliance with local regulations. These products provide incentive programs and 24/7 multilingual support.
FIFA World Cup and other third companies are made for descriptive purposes only. Boomerang Partners is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially connected to these entities in any way.
The post Boomerang Partners’ case study: how affiliates prepare traffic campaigns around major sports events appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
Boomerang Partners
Boomerang Partners’ case study: how affiliates prepare traffic campaigns around major sports events
On June 11, the FIFA World Cup 2026 starts in North America. It will be the biggest sports event of the year, but the real challenge for affiliates is the rest of the schedule. Throughout 2026, dozens of major tournaments – from football and tennis to Formula 1 – are running almost back-to-back across the sports calendar. This creates one of the most overloaded sports calendars affiliates have worked with in recent years.
Periods like these usually bring some of the highest traffic volumes and strongest audience engagement of the year for affiliate teams.
But data from Boomerang Partners shows that old tactics no longer work. You cannot just launch a campaign on match day and expect good results. Today, teams have to plan their traffic and content weeks before the first game begins.
Regular leagues create more stable traffic
The pressure of this busy schedule became clear during the recent TIME TO WIN affiliate tournament, organized by Boomerang Partners. The project became a live test for different traffic strategies during major events.
The tournament highlighted one clear pattern. Teams like Fumma LTD pointed to the UEFA Champions League and the English Premier League as some of the most reliable traffic drivers. This approach gives affiliates several advantages:
- Fixed schedules make it easier to prepare content and distribute traffic across several tournament stages.
- Recurring match cycles help teams plan campaign timing and prioritize key fixtures well before kick-off.
The real problem in sports is overlapping events. Several big tournaments now run simultaneously across different regions and time zones.
For sports-focused affiliates, this means competing for the same audience attention at the same time. In many cases, the audiences overlap as well. If two major match cycles collide, teams have to choose quickly where to push traffic. Otherwise, they will lose their visibility entirely.
Campaigns must start before kick-off
The timeline for traffic preparation has completely changed. Affiliate teams increasingly start campaign preparation long before the opening match. By the time the live event starts, much of the preparation work is already done.
Preparation now involves several steps. Content teams need to prepare match materials in advance, and media buyers must schedule traffic around the most important fixtures and play-offs.
During the live match, there is no time to fix mistakes. Audiences move too fast between different games. This is especially true when several big matches happen on the same day. If a campaign fails at kick-off, fixing it on the fly is almost impossible.
This is why arbitrage remains one of the strongest sources for sports campaigns. As Sanan Kamilli, CBO at Fumma LTD, noted during TIME TO WIN: “Google PPC works best for sports-focused campaigns because it captures high-intent users actively searching for event-related queries, allowing precise targeting, scalable volume, and strong conversion rates compared to other channels.”
Users searching for specific matches, teams, or betting odds usually show much stronger intent than broader tournament audiences. This makes search traffic particularly valuable during major sports events.
Sports traffic extends beyond the final match
Many affiliates think that sports traffic disappears once the final whistle blows. This is a mistake.
As Fumma LTD noted during TIME TO WIN, sports-driven audiences typically remain valuable for several weeks after the event. The company continues working with these users through retargeting, promoting upcoming matches, and using CRM campaigns to drive repeat engagement and increase lifetime value.
Fumma LTD also highlighted conversion rate (CR), earnings per click (EPC), and player lifetime value (LTV) as some of the key metrics for evaluating traffic quality and long-term profitability in sports-focused campaigns.
For affiliate teams, this creates opportunities beyond a single tournament window. Large finals still generate the biggest traffic peaks, but audience activity often continues into the following match cycles as well.
Using the 2026 Calendar to manage niche traffic
With so many tournaments running back-to-back in 2026, the main difficulty is managing multiple campaigns at once. Content creation, publishing, and ad buying must happen simultaneously.
To help with this, Boomerang Partners launched the Sports Marketing & Betting Calendar 2026. This tool gathers major leagues, global tournaments, and niche events in one place.
For teams like Paradise Media, this centralized schedule solved a major workflow problem. As the company noted during TIME TO WIN, football still accounts for more than 80% of online sports betting activity, so having all World Cup match days, groups, and teams in one place helps speed up research and campaign preparation. To make their workflow faster, the team also combines the calendar with different AI and LLM tools to gather information and cross-check with the calendar to enrich their content, said Mehdi, Director of Affiliates at Paradise Media.
Niche sports also play an important role during quieter periods between major football tournaments. They may not generate the same traffic volume as top leagues, but they help affiliates maintain publishing activity and keep audiences engaged throughout the year.
For many teams, this is no longer just about traffic volume. Covering niche events also helps build authority and positions affiliate platforms as more consistent sports sources outside the biggest football peaks.
A structured calendar always beats reaction
The main takeaway from the market is simple: sports marketing is no longer about quick reactions. 2026 requires good coordination, pre-made content, and smart scheduling across overlapping tournament cycles.
The strongest affiliate teams are already moving toward structured, calendar-based strategies where preparation starts weeks before kick-off and continues well beyond the final match.
About Boomerang
Boomerang Partners is a rapidly growing global marketing agency offering a wide range of services. Boomerang Partners is an Official Regional Partner of AC Milan. In 2024, it launched the inaugural Golden Boomerang Awards – a global tournament for affiliate teams. More than 400 affiliate teams participated in the second season of the tournament in 2025. Partners of the Agency launched six new products in 2024-2025, contributing to a nearly 1.5-fold increase in product users.
The Agency’s clients’ portfolio contains 10+ brands offering affiliate and entertainment services across multiple markets in compliance with local regulations. These products provide incentive programs and 24/7 multilingual support.
FIFA World Cup and other third companies are made for descriptive purposes only. Boomerang Partners is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially connected to these entities in any way.
The post Boomerang Partners’ case study: how affiliates prepare traffic campaigns around major sports events appeared first on Americas iGaming & Sports Betting News.
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