All games have rich histories, bingo is no different. One might think bingo was invented by a company looking to sell games, not true. One might think bingo was invented in North America, also not true.
The game was originally played in Italy around 1530. I like to believe it was created even earlier than that but there’s no proof. The game was originally titled “Lo Giuoco del Lotto D’Italia.” And rumor has it is still played every Saturday in certain parts of the country.
Bingo then traveled through Europe before finally reaching the United States in 1929. It’s said to have first been played in a town outside of Atlanta, Georgia. There a business man followed the game.
Originally it was called “beano.” This was because beans were used to mark off the numbers that were pulled. The numbers were on discs stored in a cigar box.
So the game was being played in Atlanta and a man had gotten a “beano” but he shouted “bingo” instead. No one knows why but it’s said that it was accidental. Regardless, the business man following the game, Edwin S. Lowe, heard the Freudian slip and renamed the game promptly.
From there he distributed the game as a fundraising tool for churches and other agencies. It because wildly popular. 10,000 games a week were played in 1934!
But there weren’t enough types of cards and many players won frequently. To prevent places from losing money, Lowe invested in a Columbia math professor by the name of Carl Leffler. He asked Leffler to make new bingo cards and Leffler obliged. He created over 6,000 different cards and consequently went insane.
The new cards work and the game’s popularity continued to rise. Today, over 90 million dollars are spent on bingo every week in North America – a staggering number!
Bingo’s history spans across the globe, unlike many games created by companies as marketing ploys, bingo’s origins are in old-time Italy. From there it traveled to France, to Germany, and then eventually the United States.
The game is quite the traveler, and rightfully so because it’s so fun!
