History of Bingo
Almost five hundred years ago, in the early 16th century, northern Italy was wealthy and civilized place. Vast merchant fleets brought exotic goods from all over the world to Venice and other important cities, creating riches for merchants and other citizens. This atmosphere of affluence created many economical inventions, such as modern banking and our beloved bingo!At the time bingo was still called “lotto”, the Italian term for “lottery”. Despite being simpler than the game we know today, it still proved to be very popular, and with travelling merchants it started to spread around Europe.
By the 18th century bingo had become hugely popular at France, where idle and wealthy aristocracy and intelligentsia loved games of all kinds. Bingo cards used at the time had three horizontal and nine vertical rows, but the game was already being played as we do today by covering numbers said aloud by the caller. Object was to get a horizontal row of numbers covered.
From France bingo traveled to Germany. There it was shaped into a game for children, with pictures of of something educational, like animals or historical events taking the place of numbers. These were the predecessors of educational bingos found at toy stores today.
Modern bingo is born
Emigrants brought bingo with them to the United States. It was most often played at the carnivals, where it was called “beano”. The name beano came from beans, which were used to cover the numbers on the cards. The game was quite popular, and players could win little toys by covering full horizontal or vertical rows of numbers on their cards.
Around 1930 toy salesman Edwin Lowe happened by accident to witness beano being played at a carnival. Lowe noticed how the players seemed to really love the game and have a lot of fun, so he decided to create his own copy and try it with his friends. He did just that, and the game proved to be an instant hit. During their very first test game one the players became so excited, that instead of calling “beano” she actually yelled out “bingo!” by accident. Lowe liked the funny sounding word and decided to call his game just that - and that really is why bingo is called bingo today.
Lowe’s bingo sets, which came with 12 or 24 cards and number tokens, proved to be just as successful as anticipated. However the last missing piece in bingos global popularity proved to be a priest from small town in Pennsylvania. The Father had a problem: he needed to raise funds for his church. Quick thinking parishioner suggested bingo, and with some help from Lowe and additional bingo cards designed by a professor of mathematics, succeeded in raising the money needed. After the fund raiser bingo simply exploded in popularity and became one of the very few games practically everybody knows how to play.
Bingo Now
From the modest beginnings of beano Lowe’s bingo sets the game has grown to being played all over the world at over one hundred thousand bingo halls.
The popular game was one the first games to go online in the mid-1990s, when internet started to reach regular people. Nowadays playing online bingo is a popular hobby just like regular bingo, with over 200 hundred online bingo sites found on the net.
