History of Bingo

The 16th century brought us many things, and Bingo was just one of them! Way back in 1530, the “Lo Giuoco del Lotto d’Italia” was launched as the first state run lottery, which proved very popular with both the Italian people and the Italian government. Today’s game of bingo has evolved significantly, and is more likened to the French lottery, Le Lotto. This was a game of chance and had a caller drawing out wooden discs from a bag, which were numbered 1 to 90. The caller would them shout out the numbers as they were drawn. Each player had one card which was divided into 3 rows and had 9 columns with numbers similar to those cards used today. The first column had 5 numbers randomly chosen between 1 and 10, the second column 5 numbers between 11 and 20 and so on up to the ninth column with 5 numbers between 81 and 90. The winner of the game was the first person to complete all the numbers on an entire row.

Later on, different versions of Le Lotto were played in Germany, but instead of being used as a form of gambling, they were developed instead for educational purposes teaching children their times tables. You can still buy similar games today.

Later on in the 1920s a hard up New York toy salesman called Edwin S. Lowe came across a carnival game in Georgia. This game was called Beano, named after the booth owner. This game involved a caller pulling differently numbered wooded discs from a bag and calling them out to the players. Each player had a game card with numbered squares and some dried beans. If the number that was called out was on their card, they marked it with a bean. The first player to have a complete row of beans, either in a horizontal, vertical or in a diagonal direction was the winner. The game was so popular, Lowe couldn’t even get to play, but the idea was formed in his mind.

He invited some friends over to his apartment in New York to play this new game and they were hooked immediately. One of his female friends was so excited whilst they were playing, that when she won, she shouted ‘bingo’ instead of beano. This word stuck with Lowe and he went on to create the first commercialised version of the game. The cards retailed at $1 for a 12 card set and $2 for a 24 cards set.

And so the game was born! By 1934 it was thought more than 10,000 bingo games were being played every week. Today, the national game is so popular, it grosses over $90 million a week in America alone.

Bingo as in the form we know today was originally a type of lottery dating back to 1530 in Italy. In 1530, the Italian National Lottery ‘Lo Giuoco del Lotto d’Italia’ was launched and is still amazingly played today.

Throughout the decades, the game evolved and was played in both France and Germany, before hitting New York. In a cold December evening in 1929, a tired and down on his luck New York toy salesman, Edwin S. Lowe, was driving to Jacksonville, Georgia. Before Lowe reached Jacksonville, he came across the bright lights of a country carnival. As he was in no rush, he parked his car and got out to take a look. All of the carnival booths were now closed except for one, which was crowded with people. Lowe strained over the crowd to see what was going on, and all he could see was a horseshoe shaped table covered with numbered cards and dried beans. It came to light that the game being played was a variation of Lotto called Beano. The caller drew small numbered wooden disks from an old cigar box and called the numbers out loud. The players checked their card to see if the number called was on their card. If the number was on their card, they covered it with a bean. This continued with each call of a number until someone filled a line of numbers on their card, this could have been a horizontal line, a vertical line or a diagonal line. The winner then shouted ‘beano’ and was awarded a small Kewpie doll.

Ed Lowe tried hard to get a game of Beano that night, but, he recalls, “I couldn’t get a seat. But while I was waiting around, I noticed that the players were practically addicted to the game. The caller wanted to close up, but every time he said, ‘This is the last game’, nobody moved. When he finally closed at 3:00 a.m. he had to chase them out.”

When Lowe returned home to New York, he bought some beans, a rubber numbering stamp and some cardboard. He invited some friends round to his apartment and explained to his friends how to play. It wasn’t long before the excitement matched that he’d seen at the carnival and during one game, as one of his friends won, she shouted “BINGO!” instead of beano and so the game was born!

“I cannot describe the strange sense of elation which that girl’s cry brought to me,” Lowe said. “All I could think of was that I was going to come out with this game, and it was going to be called Bingo!” Lowe said.