History of Online Bingo

The origin of Bingo dates back to an Italian lottery game from 1530, while the online version has only been around since 1996 when many gambling games made their transition to the internet.
An early version around the late 1920s was when gaming hall dealers selected numbered discs from a cigar box and players marked a numbered card with beans, calling out “Beano” if they won.
Edwin Lowe is credited with reinventing the beano game and adding new number combinations. The term bingo came about by one player mistakenly calling out “Bingo!”
From there, bingo games were used to raise funds for churches. The game took off across the country as a popular social event with over 10,000 games being played weekly by 1934.
It wasn’t until the 1960s that the game became enormously popular in Britain. Callers animated the numbers with cockney rhyming slang or references of cultural or historical significance.
The great aspect of bingo was its social interaction. The bingo halls had more atmosphere along with the entertainment aspect and general fun factor.
It was only natural that the game migrated to the internet after online betting was introduced in 1996. This saw a number of casino and table games go online. Only five bingo sites were available by 1999 before an explosion in its popularity occurred.
Players preferred the convenience of the web. It was easily accessible and cheaper than travelling to a land based bingo hall. Internet Relay Chat had evolved rapidly from the original IRC of 1988 and the online sites enabled a chat function that mimicked the social interaction of the bingo halls.
Advancements in gaming software, online payment functionality, graphics and quicker processing times has now resulted in over 357 specialised bingo sites, 250 of which are U.K. based.