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Bingo: History of the Game of Beans Unveiled

Bingo first came out as government-sponsored Italian lottery, called the Lo Giuoco del Lotto d'Italia. This lottery is still being played even until today, and is a major contributor to the government's budget.

It was a popular game among the French, since the French nobility played the game frequently, despite the open opposition from the Italian Catholic church.

The game was quickly brought to France, where it gained an equal footing of popularity. The French played the game with playing cards numbered in rows and columns, and each number was marked when the caller drew out a wooden chip which had a number on it from a cloth bag. Whoever completed a line of numbers won.

The game eventually spread through the whole of Europe. In Germany it was an indispensable tool used in teaching numbers to Italian children.

The game came to America by way of an American carnival operator who saw it being played in his European travels. He played the game in his carnival and soon it became a big hit in Atlanta, Georgia. It so happened that an enterprising traveling salesman, Edmund Lowe, saw the game in his carnival, and quickly became interested. He could not believe how excited the players were as they anticipated each number as ti was drawn out of cigar box, and how each player who was about to win excitedly yelled out "BEANO!, which was the name of the game.

He asked the operator how to play the game and as soon as he reached New York, his hometown, he created his own Beano game set and taught his friends how to play. One day a female friend excitedly shouted out BINGO instead of BEANO, and the name stuck. Ever the enterprising businessman, Lowe thought of marketing the game as bingo, and immediately started creating a bunch of bingo cards that he sold for a dollar or two. Soon the game was being played by more and more people, and local churches even adopted the game as one of their fund raising gimmicks.

One problem came up in the course of the game's rise to being one of the most popularly played games today. It seemed that for every game a dozen or more winner turned up. one priest from Pennsylvania suggested that Lowe's company create more cards with non-repeating number combinations to lessen then number of winners in every game. TO do this Lowe enlisted the help of Columbia Universuty math professor Carl Leffler, who created 6000 number combinations before eventually going insane from the pressure of the task.

Later, to quell any additional complaints about the game Lowe decided to create a handbook on bingo instructions and rules, called the Instruction Manual, and this was followed by The Blotter, a weekly that delivered fresh bingo news.

Today bingo remains as popular as ever, and even more so with the upsurge of online bingo sites that are cropping up in the internet.