History of Bingo

Bingo is one of the oldest games in the Western world. For over a hundred years, the game has maintained its status as a popular choice for leisure activities in players in various countries around the world.

Bingo saw its beginnings in the 1530s in Italy as a lottery-style game called “lo Giuoco de Lotto D’Italia”. The game gained a great deal of popularity in the country and it spread to France by the late 1700s. While the game became popular among higher classes in France, the game spread to the regular public in Germany by the 1800s.

The game finally reached America in the early 1900s, and was renamed to “beano”. It was renamed “bingo” when Edwin S. Lowe, a toy salesman, got his hands on the game. He took the newly-named “bingo” to Carl Leffer, a professor at Columbia University, who devised number combinations for the game’s cards. In 1930, there were now 600 different bingo cards available to make this new game even more fun and exciting.

During this time, the game started being adopted by churches who used bingo as a fundraising tool. This development saw the popularity of the game spread like wildfire, and the inception of halls dedicated solely to bingo. Today, bingo is one of the most popular games not only in the Western world but in various other locations like the UK, Spain, Italy and France.