A Brief History Of Bingo
Bingo's original roots go back as far as 1530 when the Italians created a national lottery called Lo Giuoco del Lotto d'Italia. By 1778 the French had gotten wind of this game and adapted it for their own purposes, making small changes to the game including the card which they subsequently divided into three horizontal and nine vertical rows. The vertical rows contained numbers from 1 to 10 in the first row, 11 to 20 in the second row, etc., up to 90. No two Lotto cards were alike.
By 1929 the game's popularity had spread across the world and straight to Jacksonville, Georgia, where a travelling carnival pitchman had come across the game the previous year in Germany. It was here, one evening, that Edwin S. Lowe ended up at this carnival where all but one of the booths were closed. This booth was packed with people so Lowe decided to check it out. The action centered on a horseshoe shaped table covered with numbered cards and beans. The game being played was a variation of Lotto called Beano.
The caller was pulling small numbered wooden disks from a cigar box and the players at the booth were eagerly marking them off their cards by placing a bean over the number. Once they had completed a line the player called out 'Beano'.
Lowe returned home to his native New York where he decided to have a go at operating the Beano game. His friends soon caught on to playing Beano with the same tension and excitement he had seen at the carnival. During one game, a woman, so excited at having completed a row stood and, being slightly tongue tied, shouted Bingo instead of Beano and the game as we know it today was born!
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