The origins of Bingo

Everybody loves to play bingo games - who doesn’t? For some people, bingo is about raising money for charity. For others, it’s about taking a small chance on winning a very large prize. Others still see the game as a great opportunity to socialise.

But where does it come from, this game we love so much? What are its roots, and how did it evolve to be the game we play today? And did you know that at one stage the game of Bingo was banned by the Catholic Church?

The game of bingo is actually hundreds of years old. Its European country of origin is mildly disputed, but it most likely dates back to around 1530, to an Italian lottery game called “Lo Giuoco del Lotto d’Italia.”

However, before 200 years had passed, the game had matured and was being played in France and Germany. The addition to the game of the ritual of calling out numbers is thought to be a French contribution. Amusingly, it gained a certain notoriety in Europe when it was banned by the Catholic Church, which for a time drove the game underground.

The birth of bingo as we know it today happened in America in 1929. A toy salesman from New York by the name of Edwin Lowe stumbled across a game called Beano being played in a carnival tent in Georgia, played with beans.

Lowe was intrigued but didn’t get a chance to play bingo as the tent was so crowded, but he went home inspired. At home, he developed the game further and invited some friends round to test it. When one of his guests became so excited that, stuttering, she yelled “Bingo!” instead of “Beano,” Lowe realised he was on to a winning idea, and began to market bingo commercially as a board game for playing at home.

Ironically, the Catholic Church who had banned the game more than a century before was the reason for the game’s current epic success. A priest who had been using the game of bingo to raise funds to repair his church’s roof approached Lowe. He said he found the standard bingo cards that came with the box set to be too limited, and requested that some more complex ones be developed.

And so the popular form of bingo we know and love today was born, with 90 balls and thousands of permutations of bingo cards. So next time you’re having a quiet moment at a bingo hall, think about the fact that you’re part of a grand tradition, playing a game that was created almost half a millennium ago.

Written by Bingo Lady