History

Bingo originated from several European games, its history dates back at least to the 1530s with an Italian game called “Lo Giucco del Lotto”; a game which is still played every Saturday in Italy.  The game migrated to France by the 1770s where it was called “Le Lotto” and was played among wealthy men.  The game then spread even farther a field in Europe, in Germany its known to have been adapted into an academic game by the 1880s used in school to teach children math, spelling, biology and history.   

By 1929 the game had reached North America.  The first game played was at a fair outside of Atlanta, Georgia.  The game was known as “Beano” and was played by a dealer selecting a numbered disc from a cigar box, and players marking their cards with a dried bean.  When they had a row completed, they would yell “Beano!”.  Edwin S. Lowe, a New York toy salesman was in attendance and over heard an excited player garble the word upon winning and accidentally yelled “BINGO!”  He liked the game, and took the idea back to the City and pitched it to his New York friends.   

Several years after Bingo’s success in America, Lowe was approached by a member of the Catholic clergy about using Bingo as a fund raiser – it proved so popular that by 1934 an estimated 10,000 Bingo games were played each week  One parish presented Lowe with a problem – the parish had been struggling with the issue of duplicate cards, wherein more than one player would win a game.  Lowe approached an eminent mathematician of the time, Carl Leffler of Columbia University, with a proposition for him to produce 6,000 unique Bingo cards and thereby solve the issue.  Leffler accepted the challenge, eventually meeting the demand and producing 6,000 uniquely sequenced Bingo cards.  In the end, the task was so difficult he was charging up to $100 for each new card he produced.  Legend has it that once he produced the 6,000th card he went insane from the effort. 

Today, Bingo has become so popular that more than $90 million dollars are spent on Bingo each week in North America, and nearly every town coast to coast hosts a weekly Bingo night.