About Bingo
Bingo is a game where numbers are selected out by a machine and are matched to numbers on the player's cards. The first person having the numbers on the card with a specific pattern is the winner and then calls out "Bingo" to notify the other players. Bingo is a relatively new game, descending from an old lotteries. Bingo is a form of legalized gambling in many countries.
History of Bingo
In the U.S., bingo was originally called "beano". It was a country fair game where a dealer would select numbered discs made from a cigar box and players would mark their cards with beans. They yelled "beano" if they won.
The game's history can be traced back to 1530, to an Italian lottery called "Lo Giuoco del Lotto D'Italia," which is still played every Saturday in Italy. From Italy, the game was introduced to France in the late 1770s, where it was called "Le Lotto", a game played among wealthy Frenchmen. The Germans also played a version of the game in the 1800s, but they used it as a child's game to help students learn mathematics, spelling and history.
When the game reached North America in 1929, it became known as "beano". It was first played at a carnival near Atlanta, Georgia. New York toy salesman Edwin S. Lowe renamed it "bingo" after he overheard someone accidentally yell "bingo" instead of "beano". He hired a Columbia University professor of mathematics, Carl Leffler, to help him to increase the number of combinations in bingo cards. By 1930, Leffler had invented 6,000 different bingo cards. (It is said that Leffler then went insane.) Lowe was approached by a Catholic priest from Pennsylvania about the use of bingo as a way of raising church funds. By 1934, more than 10,000 weekly bingo games were being played and until today more that $90 million dollars are being spent each week in North America.
