If you search “bingo history” on Google you will get over 53,000 hits so even though the history of the origins of bingo are very well documented there can’t be a bingo site like ours, Bingo Fun-o-rama and not include our own synopsis of the history of bingo.  So without further ado here is our addition to the 53,000+ other entries covering this subject.

Ancient Origins

The game’s history can be traced back to the 1500’s Italy.  It was an Italian lottery called “Lo Giuoco del Lotto D'Italia” that would eventually give us bingo about 400 years later.  An interesting side note, that lottery game is still played in Italy today!  Making one of the oldest continuous lotteries played.  Eventually the Italian lotto game moved through Europe.  It was known as “Le Lotto” in France.  A children’s version of this game was played in the 1800’s Germany.  It wasn’t a gambling game it was used to help students learn math, spelling, and history.

Origins in North America as Beano!

An American carny traveling in Germany happened upon the popular lotto game.  He saw its potential as a game to be played at carnivals so when he returned to America he made some modifications (gotta love that American ingenuity) to the lotto and so “Beano” was born.  That’s not a typo the very first incarnation of our beloved game was known as “Beano” not “Bingo”.  Keep reading to learn how it became known as “Bingo”. 

Beano was played as a tent games at country fairs.  Beano was a variation of that old Italian lotto.  A caller would pull out a small number written on a wooden disk from a box and call the number out loud. The players would mark their cards by placing a bean on the number. Whenever a player filled a horizontal, vertical or diagonal line on the card he would shout “Beano!”, and claim his prize.  In 1929 beano was being played at a carnival near Atlanta, Georgia.  New York toy salesman, Edwin S. Lowe was in town on business.  He arrived early and had time to kill so he decided to check out the local carnival.  It was at this fair that Edwin S. Lowe saw a game of “Beano” in action.  It was being played in a booth.  The booth was packed with players.  The player used beans to mark their cards once a number was called, thus the name “Beano”.  Mr. Lowe was amazed with the packed game that went on for hours.  The games were so popular that the carny tried to shut down for the night several times but was unable because of all the people lined up to play.  Mr. Lowe himself was unable to play that night because of the large lines and the carny eventually shut down for the night by chasing away the remaining players at 3:00 AM.  Mr. Lowe was amazed at how addicted to the game the players appeared.

Back in New York Beano becomes BINGO!

Mr. Lowe crated his own beano game with some dried beans, a rubber numbering stamp and some cardboard.  He invited friends to play at his apartment and Mr. Lowe became the caller.  It was during one of these games Mr. Lowe was hosting that one of his female friends became so excited that she had won the game that she became tongue tied in her excitement over winning that while trying yell “Beano” she blurted out b-b-BINGO instead.  It was at the time that Mr. Lowe knew he had a winning product he needed to market.  As he would later describe it,  "I cannot describe the strange sense of elation which that girl's cry brought to me," Lowe said. "All I could think of was that I was going to come out with this game, and it was going to be called Bingo!"

The earliest Lowe Bingo games came in two variations - a twelve card set for one dollar and a two dollar set with twenty-four cards. The game was an immediate success and put Lowe's company on the map.  Soon imitators were all over the market and Mr. Lowe could have trademarked the name Bingo even though the game itself couldn’t since it came out of the public domain.  All he asked was that his competitors pay him a dollar a year and call their games Bingo too.  They eagerly agreed since it was much better then dealing with a possible legal fight.  Thus all games became known as Bingo and the name became generic.

The E.S. Lowe Company became a very successful toy company which introduced other popular board games apart from Bingo their other famous creation was “Yahtzee”.  Yahtzee was actually invented by a wealthy Canadian couple to play aboard their yacht. Whenever friends were invited aboard, they were taught how to play the "Yacht" game. Their friends enjoyed the game so much that they all wanted copies of their own.  In 1956, the couple approached Mr. Lowe, who by then made a fortune selling Bingo games. Lowe liked the game so much that he offered to buy the rights. They agreed to sell the rights for the price of the first 1,000 games produced so they could fulfill their friend’s requests. Lowe eventually changed the name of the game to Yahtzee.  The Milton Bradley Company acquired the E. S. Lowe Company in 1973.

Bingo and the church Fundraiser, Math, and the Insanity Legend

In the 1930’s, Lowe was approached by a priest from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The Father had a problem in his parish.   Having bought several of Lowe’s $2.00 Bingo game the church has found a fun way to hold church fundraisers and of using Bingo as a way to get the church out of its financial troubles.   Problems with this great fundraiser developed immediately when it was found that each game produced half a dozen or more winners. So the priest asked Mr. Lowe for assistance.  Lowe could immediately see the tremendous fund raising possibilities of Bingo, but at the same time, he realized that to make the game workable on this large of a scale, a great many more combinations of numbers would have to be developed for the cards.  Mr. Lowe hired the services of a professor of mathematics at Columbia University, Carl Leffler. Lowe's request was for the professor to devise 6,000 new Bingo cards with non repeating number groups. The professor agreed and got to work on a per card fee bases.  As the professor developed new cards, each new card became increasingly difficult. Toward the end the price per card had risen to $100. Eventually, the task was completed and The E.S. Lowe Company had its 6,000 cards.  Legend has it that the professor became insane after coming up with 6,000 bingo cards with different number combinations!  The church of Wilkes-Barre was saved and after it, a Knights of Columbus Hall in Utica, New York. Word was out and Bingo began being used as a fundraising tool.  As Mr. Lowe noted, "I used to get thousands of letters asking for help on setting up Bingo games", so many that he published Bingo's first Instructional Manual.  This effort was followed by a monthly news letter called The Blotter which was distributed to 37,000 subscribers.  By 1934 there were an estimated 10,000 Bingo games a week, and Mr. Lowe's firm had a thousand employees trying to keep up with demand with 64 presses printing bingo cards 24 hours a day.

Bingo Lives On

Bingo continues to be a popular game played in homes, bingo halls, and church basements.  And now it’s moved on to the Internet where online Bingo is fast becoming a popular game amongst net surfers.  From it’s origins in the 1500’s in Italy to the Internet Bingo continues to be one of the most beloved games in the world.  We can all raise our daubers to Mr. Lowe who had the vision to mass market beano and rename it BINGO!