A Brief History of Bingo

Bingo was originally played in Italy as far back as the early as 1535 where they had a lottery gamne called Lo Giuoco del Lotto DItalia which is still played (hopefully not the same game) From Italy the game moved to France towards the end of 1700 where is was known as Le Lotto played mainly by rich Frenchmen. The Germans developed a version of there own but was used for educational purposes.

By 1929 Bingo arrived in the United States of America and was probably picked up by travelling carnivals returning from Europe. Origianlly players were given discs to mark their cards and a dealer would call out the numbers. A winning person would shout out "Beano" to the dealer.

New York toy salesman Edwin S. Lowe renamed it "bingo" after allegidly hearing someone shout it by mistake instead of "Beano" A maths proffessor was hired to increase the number of different combinations on the cards.

After a change in the law Bingo was introduced to the UK which enabled members clubs to play for cash in the mid nineteen sixties. After this the popularity of Bingo it has gone from strength to strength and there are clubs all over the UK.