Origins of the Game Bingo

When I was a young girl, my family went to a 4th of July celebration in the mountains of North Carolina. Of all the activates of the day, my favorite game was bingo. Prizes were won and there was nothing more exciting than standing up and yelling “bingo”. The game is popular in America and all over the world. The game bingo has a long and interesting history.
Today’s bingo is a form of lottery. It originated from a game called Lo Guioco del Lotto d’Italia that was played in Italy in 1530. In 1718 there is record that a similar game was played in France called Le Lotto. 

The named is formed from Beano, an early form of the modern game. Beano was popular in the 1920s. History says that an excited person screamed “bingo” instead of “beano” when he won a game. Another story attributes the name and modern game to Edwin S. Lowe from New York. In 1929, he was traveling to Georgia selling toys. 

His toy business was struggling due to the recent Depression. He was almost bankrupt. As Lowe approached Jacksonville, Florida he saw a carnival. He was tired and ahead of schedule and decided to stop. He watched the game beano and hatched a plan. He altered the game just a bit and began to travel with the carnivals playing bingo. In order to prevent litigation while marketing his new game, it is said that he changed the name. 

Lowe joined forces with a mathematics professor at Columbia University named Carl Leffler. Carl devised 6,000 bingo cards without repeating number groups. The professor worked diligently and at the end of the venture was charging Lowe a fee of $100.00 per a card. A church in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania is the first recorded to hold a bingo game at a church. The game actually helped the priest and church recover from financial problems.