History of Bingo. Bingo is a game of chance that can be traced back to the 16th century in Italy. Bingo is a form of lottery where randomly-selected numbers are drawn and players match those numbers to those printed on cards distributed to them. Each card has three rows and nine columns with numbers on them. As the numbers are being drawn, the player matches those with the numbers on his/her card. The player who gets a complete row is declared a winner and the full house winner is the one who manages to strike out all the numbers in his/her card. The first documented case of the game is ‘Lo Giuoco del Lotto d’Italia’, the first ever state-run lottery that became extremely popular among the locals and the government of Italy in the 1530s. Lo Guioco del Lotto d’Italia is still played in Italy every Saturday.
This game was introduced in France, in the name of ‘Le Lotto’ in the 1770s and France’s neighbour, Germany also played a similar version of the game in the 1800s, but the game was essentially used to help students learn math, spelling and history. The game later reached North America in 1929, rechristened “beano”, where it was first played in a carnival near Atlanta, Georgia and it was here that Edwin S. Lowe renamed it ‘bingo’ after he heard someone accidentally yell ‘bingo’ instead of ‘beano’. Lowe sensed the potential of developing the game and hired Carl Leffler, a Columbia University Math professor to help him increase the number of bingo cards with new combinations. By 1930, Leffler had invented about 6000 different bingo cards. A Catholic priest from Pennsylvania approached Lowe as he wanted to raise funds and wanted to do the same with the help of bingo. Bingo became extremely popular and was played in many churches all over America and by 1934, there were an estimated 10000 Bingo games a week in North America alone. The sad part is that professor Leffler lost his sanity after he invented the bingo cards. Even today, Bingo is being played extensively as it is a hot favourite among the young and the old all over the world.
This game was introduced in France, in the name of ‘Le Lotto’ in the 1770s and France’s neighbour, Germany also played a similar version of the game in the 1800s, but the game was essentially used to help students learn math, spelling and history. The game later reached North America in 1929, rechristened “beano”, where it was first played in a carnival near Atlanta, Georgia and it was here that Edwin S. Lowe renamed it ‘bingo’ after he heard someone accidentally yell ‘bingo’ instead of ‘beano’. Lowe sensed the potential of developing the game and hired Carl Leffler, a Columbia University Math professor to help him increase the number of bingo cards with new combinations. By 1930, Leffler had invented about 6000 different bingo cards. A Catholic priest from Pennsylvania approached Lowe as he wanted to raise funds and wanted to do the same with the help of bingo. Bingo became extremely popular and was played in many churches all over America and by 1934, there were an estimated 10000 Bingo games a week in North America alone. The sad part is that professor Leffler lost his sanity after he invented the bingo cards. Even today, Bingo is being played extensively as it is a hot favourite among the young and the old all over the world.
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