Bingo History

The game of Bingo dates back to the 1500's in Italy. The game was to the social and art community in Florence. It was an immediate hit and became a favorite activity for the Italian nobility. Bingo's popularity spread throughout Italy and reached the France during the late 1700s. From there it spread to Germany in the 1800's where it was actually used as an educational tool.

Bingo arrived in the states in 1929 and was called originally referred to as Beano. It was being played in a Florida county fair where a toy salesman named Edwin S. Lowe "discovered" the game. He noticed how popular the game was as he waited till 3:00am in the morning without ever getting an opportunity to sit at one of the tables.

When Lowe returned to his home in New York he purchased some beans and a rubber stamp and created some cards using card board. He then began hosting parties for his friends and neighbors to see how much they would enjoy playing the game. After several testing sessions one woman having hit the final number mistakenly yelled bbbb-bingo and Lowe had a new brainchild.

Lowe's earliest versions of the Bingo game came in two variations - a one dollar set with twelve cards and a two dollar set with twenty four cards. The game was an immediate success and put Lowe's company on a path to success. On an unrelated topic Lowe would later "discover" the game yahtzee and make it a sensation as well. I guess you could "call" Lowe an opportunist, always in the right place at the right time to make money off someone elses idea!

Several months after Bingo hit the market, Lowe was approached by a priest from Pennsylvania. The Father had a problem in his parish; it wasn't making enough money to sustain itself. He had an idea of using Lowe's game to assist in raising funds, but in its current state there were always too many winners as there were not enough variations of number schemes.

So Lowe sought the services of a professor of mathematics and after some time the scholar had devised a plan to create 6,000 unique bingo cards. The church was saved and after it another in New York. By 1934 there were an estimated 10,000 Bingo games being played per week, and Lowe's game firm had more than thousand employees trying to keep up with demand for the new game.

Today it is as hot as ever, in both churches - that actually have dedicated bingo halls in their establishment, and in neighborhood halls all over the country. More recently thanks to the Internet the game is also played online giving players around the world an opportunity to play bingo with others from their own home. If you have every played you know for yourself just how entertaining and addicting the game can be. If your fortunate enough to have won at least once you also know how rewarding it can be.