Some specialists claim that the bingo game first appeared in 1530 in Italy. They had a lottery called “Lo Giuoco del Lotto D'Italia", still very much alive these days, played every Saturday. Two centuries later, the French started to play their own version, called "Le Lotto". In the 19th century, it is known that the Germans were using variations of bingo games to teach children. Common subjects taught while playing this game were spelling and math, along with history.
In the United States, bingo was played in the countryside fairs. A dealer would select numbers printed on discs that would be drawn from a cigar box, while the players would mark off the numbers in their tickets, placing raw beans over them. That is still the way bingo is played in many South American countries. When a player won, they would call “beano”. A salesman then overhead someone yelling “Bingo” by mistake and renamed the game. He created over 6,000 different bingo cards, using different combinations of numbers. For that, he had the help of a math professor from the University of Columbia.
The game became even more popular years later when a Catholic priest had the idea of using this easy-to-play game to raise funds for his church. Its popularity then increased steadily and, in the mid 1930s, it is estimated that over 10 thousand bingo games would be played every week in North America. Today, possibly over 100 million people are regular bingo players worldwide, thanks largely to the rise of online bingo sites such as
skybingo. One of the keys for its success is the gambling aspect of this game – players don't have to be experts to enjoy it, because luck plays a major role. Also, bingo is so easy to play that is often used in family parties or in groups activities for entertainment.
Disclaimer:
Some of the news articles on this website have been provided by third parties. Any views / opinions expressed in any article on this website
don't necessarily match the views / opinions of the website owner.
Contact the website owner if you have any issues regarding a news article, remembering to quote the
ID of the article (shown below the subject).