Origins of Bingo
The game’s history can be traced back to the 1500’s Italy. It was an Italian lottery called “Lo Giuoco del Lotto D'Italia” that would eventually give us bingo about 400 years later. An interesting side note, that lottery game is still played in Italy today! Making one of the oldest continuous lotteries played. Eventually the Italian lotto game moved through Europe. It was known as “Le Lotto” in France. A children’s version of this game was played in the 1800’s Germany. It wasn’t a gambling game it was used to help students learn math, spelling, and history.
Bingo Arrives in the USA
An American carny traveling in Germany happened upon the popular lotto game. He saw its potential as a game to be played at carnivals so when he returned to America he made some modifications (gotta love that American ingenuity) to the lotto and so “Beano” was born. That’s not a typo the very first incarnation of our beloved game was known as “Beano” not “Bingo”. Keep reading to learn how it became known as “Bingo”.
Beano was played as a tent games at country fairs. Beano was a variation of that old Italian lotto. A caller would pull out a small number written on a wooden disk from a box and call the number out loud. The players would mark their cards by placing a bean on the number. Whenever a player filled a horizontal, vertical or diagonal line on the card he would shout “Beano!”, and claim his prize. In 1929 beano was being played at a carnival near Atlanta, Georgia. New York toy salesman, Edwin S. Lowe was in town on business. He arrived early and had time to kill so he decided to check out the local carnival. It was at this fair that Edwin S. Lowe saw a game of “Beano” in action. It was being played in a booth. The booth was packed with players. The player used beans to mark their cards once a number was called, thus the name “Beano”. Mr. Lowe was amazed with the packed game that went on for hours. The games were so popular that the carny tried to shut down for the night several times but was unable because of all the people lined up to play. Mr. Lowe himself was unable to play that night because of the large lines and the carny eventually shut down for the night by chasing away the remaining players at 3:00 AM. Mr. Lowe was amazed at how addicted to the game the players appeared.
How Beano! became Bingo!
Mr. Lowe crated his own beano game with some dried beans, a rubber numbering stamp and some cardboard. He invited friends to play at his apartment and Mr. Lowe became the caller. It was during one of these games Mr. Lowe was hosting that one of his female friends became so excited that she had won the game that she became tongue tied in her excitement over winning that while trying yell “Beano” she blurted out b-b-BINGO instead. It was at the time that Mr. Lowe knew he had a winning product he needed to market. As he would later describe it, "I cannot describe the strange sense of elation which that girl's cry brought to me," Lowe said. "All I could think of was that I was going to come out with this game, and it was going to be called Bingo!"
Bingo Today
Bingo continues to be a popular game played in homes, bingo halls, and church basements. And now it’s moved on to the Internet where online Bingo is fast becoming a popular game amongst net surfers. From it’s origins in the 1500’s in Italy to the Internet Bingo continues to be one of the most beloved games in the world. We can all raise our daubers to Mr. Lowe who had the vision to mass market beano and rename it BINGO!
The popularity of the Internet has brought bingo out of Church basements and into computer owners home the past few years. The death of bingo has been predicted many times during the last 50 years however it keeps coming back strong. Now thanks to the Internet online bingo is rising in popularity since bingo is the world’s most socially acceptable form of gambling, it’s not suprising that its growth continues at record levels. In the UK alone, bingo players wagered 1.4 billion (British Pound Sterling) at land-based bingo halls!
Shifting Bingo Demographics
According to stats gathered by Phil Fraser, founder of WhichBingo.com, online bingo players are getting younger. Fraser's figures show that nearly 25% of online players are under 35 and the size of the under- 35 segment grows each year. Online Bingo is becoming a popular game to play by the coveted 18-39 year old demograhic in countries around the world.
This youth movement in bingo games isn't going unnoticed by the "big boys"
in business. Not only have the power house online casino sites like Casino
On Net (home of 888.com) and Party Gaming (home of PartyPoker.com) taken
notice and recently launched their own bingo sites but non-gambling powerhoused
are joining in. Sir Richard Branson famed businessman and founder of Virgin
Records has recently launched Virgin Bingo and Bill Gates of Microsoft
fame has teamed up with a major UK online bingo site to offer bingo games
on MSN. So your grandmothers bingo has changed a lot in recent years!
It's a fun time to be playing bingo online!
Bingo Software is Key
If you read other articles on this website you know that our favorite bingo software is Parlay. Well we're not along. The big boys like Virgin and Yahoo are all using Parlay's bingo software! But we still prefer to play on the smaller family owned type bingo sites like Bingo Tide so check them out. Bingo Tide will give you $5.00 free just to try them out. No deposit, no download needed! So check them out today.
