Bingo History: From Europe to America
Bingo started off as a lottery in Europe, specifically in Italy soon after its reunification. Italians called the lottery Lo Giuoco del Lotto D'Italia', even at a time when the Catholic church was strongly opposed to it because it involved the random casting of lots.
In 1778, the game was brought to France and became an instant success with the nobility. The equally strong opposition from the Church coupled with the French upper class' fascination with the game became the right mix for the game's popularity in France, where the people called it Le Lotto.
The game was played with numbered cards in 3 rows and 9 columns, and similar to modern bingo, each card had a unique set of numbers.
Bingo came to America in the 1920s and it was first played in a carnival near Atlanta Georgia. It was discovered by a traveling salesman named Edmund Lowe who happened to stop by the carnival to see its sights. He saw the game being played in a booth. Players held numbered cards arranged in columns and rows. A caller would draw out wooden chips from a cloth bag and call out the number for the players to hear. The players would then mark the numbers on their cards. Whoever was able to form a complete row, column or diagonal line with the numbers can call out 'Beano' and received a Kewpie doll.
Lowe became so intrigued by seeing the excitement that the game generated from the players. As soon as he arrived in New York he assembled his own beano set, and played the game with friends. The game became such a hit that Lowe decided to market it, and started to sell beano cards for one or two dollars each.
The name 'bing' was first heard when a female player, in all the excitement, mistakenly called out 'bingo' instead of 'beano'. Lowe heard it, and thought that this would be a perfect name for the game that he planned to popularize in the US.
The game's development into being a household name was not without any problems, however. A priest from Pennsylvania approached Lowe and told him that the games held in his church often turned out with a dozen or so winners, which was not a good thing for their fund raising efforts. To solve this problem, Lowe requested Columbia University professor Carl Leffler to create number combinations for bingo that would be not repeated in each card to reduce to possibility of multiple winners for each game.
Carl Leffler succeeded in creating 6000 non-repeating number combinations for bingo, but paid for it with his sanity. It is widely believed that he went insane not long after accomplishing the 6000 number combinations for the game.
The game's popularity sky-rocketed when churche used bingo in their fund raising events, and soon churches had regular bingo nights, which was usually held during Fridays or Saturdays. It is not an uncommon sight to see people flocking to church on Friday night for a friendly game of bingo, as well as a night of eating and socialization.