The actual word “bingo” was first recorded in England around 1776. However, clear evidence as to the game’s existence dates back to the 1500’s. A version of bingo was practiced in Italy as early as 1530, known as “Lo Giuoco del Lotto D’Italia”. The game spread beyond Italian boundaries during the late 1700’s, when it made its way into France. There it was called “Le Lotto” and appealed mostly to wealthy Frenchmen. It used a playing card with nine columns and three rows, with four free spaces per row.

Bingo was also played in Germany during the 1800’s, but for different purposes, more specifically as a way to teach children math, spelling and history.

The game’s current name was given by a stuttering player

In the United States the game was first called “beano”. In 1929 it was played at a fair near Atlanta, Georgia; the basic rule was that a dealer would select numbered discs from a cigar box and players would mark their cards with beans. In case they won, they were required to yell “beano”. Edwin J Lowe, an entrepreneur from New York, was present at the fair and renamed the game “bingo” after a stuttering player accidentally yelled that instead of “beano”. Convinced that the game had significant potential, Lowe hired a math professor from Columbia University, by the name of Carl Leffler, to help him increase the number of combinations available on bingo cards. In less than a year’s time, Leffler was able to produce 6,000 different combinations. According to popular belief, the tremendous work took its toll on the professor, who lost his sanity.

In the meantime, Lowe refused to abandon his plan and made several attempts to popularize the game further. His long-awaited breakthrough came when a priest from Pennsylvania asked Lowe if he could use the game in order to raise money for his church. The game’s popularity spread widely in a few years time, with 10,000 games being played weekly in North America by the mid 1930’s.

A new bingo revolution began in the 1990’s, upon the development of the World Wide Web. In 1996, a free bingo game called “Bingo Zone” was launched. Only two years later, Uproar introduced its own bingo platform, called Bingo Blitz.

Bingo in numbers

Today more than $90 million is spent on bingo in North America alone. Outside the United States, the global gross gaming yield of bingo is forecasted beyond $1 billion in 2011. Even more so than the profit-related aspect, bingo captivates players because it is a fun, social game, easily as enjoyable for men as for women, and available to a multitude of age groups. We encourage you to become part of the worldwide bingo family and leave your own mark on the history of this fabulous game.