History of Bingo

One of the first bingo games to be played was a lottery type game called "Lo Giuoco Code Loto" it can be traced back to the 1530's and began in Italy.

By the 1700s bingo made its way into France where they were using playing cards, tokens and reading out of numbers. the playing card used in the game was divided into three horizontal and nine vertical rows. Each horizontal row had five numbered and four blank squares in a random arrangement. The vertical rows contained numbers from 1 to 10 in the first row, 11 to 20 in the second row, et cetera, up to 90. No two Lotto cards were alike. Chips numbered from 1 to 90 completed the playing equipment. Players were dealt a single Lotto card, then the caller would draw a small wooden, numbered token from a cloth boag and read the number aloud. The players would cover the number if it appeared on their card. The first player to cover a horizontal row was the winner.

The 1800s saw bingo widely used in Germany for educational purposes, to teach children spelling, animal names and multiplication tables, the Germans gave 3-6 year olds loto games to help them learn such as animal lotto, spelling lotto etc.

In 1929, at a travelling carnival near Atlanta, a type of bingo called Beano was being played with dried beans, a rubber stamp and cardboard sheets. A sales man (Ed Lowe) was watching this game and noticed how engaged the players were. The Carnival worker had to kick the players out at 3 am. The sals man, took the idea with him to New York where he introduced the game to his friends. He conducted bingo games similar to the ones he had witnessed, using dried beans, a rubber numbering stamp and card board. His friends and family also loved the game, this gave Ed Lowe lots of confidence to go out and market the game.

So how did bingo get its name? One day Lowe was conducting a game and one of his female players made bingo history when she was so excited to have won that she yelled out “Bingo” instead of “Beano." The name caught on and bingo became a success. The Lowe Bingo Game had two versions; the first a 12-card set for $1.00, the second a $2.00 set with 24 cards.

By 1934 there were over 10,000 bingo games per week and Ed Lowes firm over 1,000 employees

By the 1940s Bingo games were all over the country. Lowe had many competitors and all he asked was that they pay $1.00 a year to conduct the games and of course to use the name Bingo.