A History of Bingo, the Birth and Evolution of the Game.

The modern form of Bingo, such as it is today, has its origins in Italy around 1530. At that time a lottery called "Lo Giuco Del Lotto d'Italia" was an extremely popular pastime for Italian Citizens, even though the Catholic Church- whose influence at the time was immense- was resolutely against any gambling.

This lottery game then spread to France, it is recorded to have arrived by 1778, and it was received with much success by French citizens, even though the church there was also against any forms of gambling. It served to strengthen the popularity of similar games throughout Europe, during the 18th Century. Henceforth, the game evolved and began to be played on a table divided by three horizontal lines and nine vertical columns, which is rather similar to the 90-ball games played today. Every line had five numbered squares and four empty squares laid out in a randomised fashion. The columns were numbered 1-10 in the first column, 11-20 on the second column, and so on until the number 90 was reached. Just as in the modern game of Bingo, each table had a unique configuration.

A century later the game had managed to cross the Atlantic Ocean and bingo made its first appearance in the United States in the 1920s and quickly adopted its own Americanisms. The game was then known as "Beano" because players used to mark their cards using beans (no sneezing please!); this version of Bingo saw the beginning of a new system whereby numbers were drawn from a cigar box. The popularity of the game spread all over the country, especially in rural areas where anti-gambling rules were less pronounced than they were in urban areas.

1929 saw the advent of New York vender, Edwin Lowe, he helped to popularise the game and to increase its popularity. The exact circumstances and dates are not known, however it is well established that a person in Lowe's vicinity, while at a game, stood up and shouted "Bingo" instead of "Beano" to indicate a win, and the name stuck. Lowe believed that the word "Bingo" was more catchy and quirky than "Beano" and set about promoting Bingo as game in New York City, and then the rest of the United States.

With the help of a professor of mathematician, named Carl Leffler, Lowe created even more randomised cards so that a single winner could win every time, so instead of the original 900 different cards, they managed to create 6000 unique cards. It is said that so much pressure was placed on Leffler to get it right, that he ended up becoming mad!

Once the game developed by Lowe was perfected, its popularity went of the scale. Lowe quickly discovered that, in an odd sense, his greatest business partner was the Catholic Church as this network facilitated its spread. The games popularity spread very quickly along the northern territory of the United States with a massive 10,000 games played weekly. Today, many games of Bingo are played each day, in the United States and also Worldwide. Small religious communities play, as well as massive online communities, Bingo is absolutely everywhere. Bingo brings in revenues of several million dollars and is among the top three gambling games worldwide, which also includes Backgammon and Poker. The prizes for Bingo are getting larger and larger and because it is so easy, anybody can play. We can say, therefore, that Bingo has a long and popular history dating back from the 1530s!!