Mecca Bingo owner receives a boost from the wetter summer weather

“Mecca venues had a very strong start to the year, benefiting from the wet weather in July and early August,” it told shareholders on Thursday.

Rank revealed that Mecca’s net gaming revenue, on a like-for-like basis, had increased 7 per cent in the year to the end of June, with the number of visits to its sites rising by 4 per cent.

This was slower than some of Rank’s other businesses because Mecca has taken longer to recover from the pandemic.

It said that older bingo customers had been the slowest to return.

It shut 15 Mecca sites during the year and has 56 left. The business said that it had taken a £7.7m hit from the cost of closing these sites, and one other, during the year. It also took a £119m hit in impairment charges because many of its venues had not performed as well as hoped. Partly as a result of that, Rank swung from a pre-tax profit of £73m to a £123m loss during the most recent financial year. Like-for-like net gaming revenue rose 4 per cent at Grosvenor Casinos during the period, with all the growth coming in the second half of the year.

Chief executive John O’Reilly said: “The return of customers to our Grosvenor and Mecca venues continues to pick up and our second half numbers give cause for optimism after a very challenging couple of years.

“During that time, our UK venues have faced a surge in energy costs, high wage inflation, a tightening in the regulatory environment, the slow return of overseas visitors to London’s casinos and the more general pressures on the consumer’s discretionary expenditure.

“However, energy costs have stabilised, inflation appears to now be easing, customers continue to slowly return to both our Grosvenor and our Mecca venues and we now expect to deliver good levels of revenue and profit growth.”

Retail sales slowed in July as the washout weather gave consumers no reason to restock their summer wardrobes, according to recent figures.

British Retail Consortium chief executive Helen Dickinson said: “The slowing pace of retail price inflation fed through into slower sales this July. Spend was further depressed by the damp weather, which did no favours to sales of clothing, and other seasonal goods."