Bingo – For Those Who Like Testing Their Luck

So you have faith in your luck and have no apprehensions against testing it every now and then. Well, if this is what you think, you don’t you go for a bingo game? Maybe, you could win big by riding on your good luck.

You should always be aware about the history of something for appreciating it more. Hence, we will dwell a bit into bingo history.

Origin

Bingo has its origins in a game of lottery which was prevalent in Italy during the 16th century, especially during 1530. It was called “Lo Giuoco Code Loto”. France took up to this game by 1700’s. Here, it was called “Le Lotto”. Wealthy Frenchmen played games with cards and tokens since a long time but now they introduced numbers too. Germans used a similar game for helping children with learning spelling, math and history.

Introduction In North America

The next chapter in bingo history takes us to North America. In 1929, the game came to North America and it was called “beano” here. This was an important phase in bingo history. The game was played by dealers selecting numbered discs out of cigar boxes. The players were required to get their cards marked with beans and on winning they had to yell “beano”.

Contribution Of Edwin Lowe

The name of Edwin Lowe can never be left out while talking about bingo history. He renamed “beano” to “bingo” after overhearing someone mistakenly hollering “bingo” rather than “beano”. This occurred during a bingo game in an Atlanta carnival. Along with Carl Leffler, a math professor in Columbia University, Lowe invented about 6,000 new bingo cards by adding new number combinations to them. When a Pennsylvanian catholic priest approached Lowe regarding using bingo to raise funds for the church, bingo started gaining popularity. Due to increased bingo cards being made available, bingo became a staple game in churches all across America. About 10,000 games were organized every week by 1934. Today, money in excess of $90,000 is spent weekly over bingo games in the territory of North America only.

Lowe introduced the game initially in two sets of 12 and 24 cards each. But, the church request made him realize the true financial potential of the game due to which he decided to invent new number combinations. This indeed marked an important event in bingo history. Later, bingo started to be played in theatres of motion pictures in the U.K in 1930’s. Customers were given bingo cards along with the admission tickets once in a week. Prizes having a worth of hundreds of bucks could be won. Bingo games which were held on a national level were legalized in 1986 in the U.K. with the introduction of the gaming act of U.K.

Another important event of bingo history was its introduction over the internet in 2003. They have become extremely popular today.

How It Is Played?

After having an insight about the bingo history, let us discuss about how it is played. Bingo players are given bingo cards containing a grid having unique number combinations, and also blank spaces in certain countries.

The game of bingo is played by drawing numbers which are randomly selected and the players are required to match the drawn numbers with those numbers that have been printed on their cards. Anyone who possesses a card having numbers forming a particular pattern with the numbers that have been drawn is declared the winner. The winner needs to holler the word “bingo” for declaring his win. Few common patterns are full card, cover-all and blackout. It is also referred to as house in Australia and the U.K.

Some countries use the game of bingo in place of legalized gambling. This game is also known by the name housie in Australia and the U.K.

Bingo is probably the only betting game which has never been considered a sinful activity. So, when are you joining the bingo action for adding your name to the bingo history?