Online Bingo

The History Of Bingo

Bingo is a descendant of the Italian National Lottery, "Lo Giuoco del Lotto d'Italia". Bingo's roots can be traced back to 1530, when Italy became a united country and the national lottery was held every single week.

By 1778, Le Lotto had also become intriguing to the intellectuals of Italian society. The lotto playing card of the time was separated into three horizontal and nine vertical rows. The horizontal rows consisted of five numbered and four blank squares in random order, and the vertical rows numbered 1 to 10 in the first row, 11 to 20 in the second row, and so on, up to 90. No two Lotto cards were alike. Wooden playing tokens were numbered from 1-90 and players were given one Lotto card apiece. Callers drew one token from a cloth and called the number on it out loud. Players covered numbers if they appeared on their cards, and the first player to cover a horizontal row, was the winner. Not very different from today's bingo, right?

Europe was not the only continent to be hit with "Lotto mania". The Italian lottery game made its way to America via a carnival pitchman touring Germany. The carnival pitchman realized how popular the game was and made a few changes to improve it. These rule changes allowed players to also complete rows vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. He also changed the name of the game to "Beano".

Bingo history can be traced back to the year 1929, in which a traveling toy salesman Edwin S. Lowe, stopped at a European carnival and spotted a crowded Beano tent. The salesman did not have a chance to play the game, but realized its money-making potential due to the large crowds waiting to play. On returning home to New York, Lowe created his own game with beans, a number stamp, and cardboard. He invited friends over to play, and at one stage one of his friends called out "bingo!" Since then, the name stuck.

A priest from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania was the first person to promote bingo in churches. Bingo became a popular way of raising money at church fundraisers. However, only 24 unique bingo cards were available to play with, creating too many winners per game. The priest got into contact with Lowe and requested that more cards with unique number combinations be created. Increasing number of cards was crucial to making the games successful at churches throughout America.

That's the history of how today's bingo game came into being and became popular.