Bingo History: From Lotto to Beano to Bingo
Bingo is a very popular game that almost anyone can play and enjoy. It is a game of chance that is extremely easy to learn and get into. There are several variations and versions of bingo, and the more popular one is the US and Canadian version. But where and when did the game bingo all started?
Bingo's origin can be pointed back to Italy, in the year 1530. The predecessor of modern bingo is said to have been an Italian lotto game. This lottery was called "Lo Giuoco del Lotto D'Italia", and up to now is still being played in Italy every Saturday.
This game was then brought to France and renamed to "Le Lotto" during the late 1770's. Le Lotto players were mostly restricted to wealthy French individuals. A similar version of the game was also later introduced to Germany, although this particular game was mostly used for teaching math, history and spelling to children.
The game's introduction to the United States did not take place until 1929, and during those days it was called "Beano". Beano debuted in American shores at a carnival near Atlanta, Georgia. It was later renamed to "Bingo" after a toy salesman from New York named Edwin Lowe heard a player shout the word "bingo" and not "beano".
Lowe saw the potential of bingo, so he paid a math professor named Carl Leffler to assist him in increasing the total figure of possible combinations in bingo cards. It took Leffler several years to come up with 6,000 different combinations in bingo cards. He achieved this by the year 1930, and it was later claimed that the mathematician went insane.
Bingo's popularity further heightened when churches started holding bingo games to raise church funds. This took place when a Catholic priest asked for Lowe's assistance to help him use bingo as a fund raising method. A statistical study conducted in 1934 placed an estimate of 10,000 bingo games being played every week.
Bingo spread throughout the United States like wildfire. Bingo games were being held almost everywhere during the 1940's. Edwin Lowe - the man who almost single handedly started the bingo craze in America - soon had to face numerous competitors. Because Lowe patented the name "Bingo", he asked for a paltry sum of $1 each from his competitors every year to hold their own bingo games, and to apply the word bingo to their games.
Due to the recent boom of online casinos and bingo halls, the popularity of bingo was propelled even higher than it already was. Today, bingo games are held all over the world, and as a testament of bingo's popularity, an estimated $90 million are spent weekly in North America alone on bingo.