Bingo Trivia

We've all wondered, more than once, Where Did Bingo Come From?
After all, it's the most popular game in the world, played on every continent and allegedly, in 90% of the countries of the world. In other places Bingo goes by other names like, Housie Housie, Tombola and Lotto, but the idea and outcome of the game is the same, i.e. Cover a row of numbers with counters before any other player can do so to win a prize.

Roger Snowden's classic book "Gambling Times Guide to Bingo" follows Bingo back to the organization of the Italian National Lottery, Lo Giuoco del Lotto d'Italia, which followed shortly after the unification of Italy in 1530.

(if you've every wondered about number theory, statistical calculations and winning strategies, this is the book for you)

Lo Giuoco del Lotto d'Italia is still held weekly today. By the 1700s the Lotto craze had spread across the continent with the French, German and British Isles all playing like mad, with some modifications. Theclassic version of Lotto had three horizontal and nine vertical rows and was played with 90 chips (balls). The 90 ball version is still popular in many parts of the world.

On to America!
The story picks up in America as we follow Edwin Lowe, owner of a struggling toy-company. Legend has it while on the road one night he was attracted by noice and lights to a roadside carnival. Inside one crowded tent a variation of Lotto called Beano was being played. The first player to fill in a line of numbers on their card shouted "Beano." and received a small Kewpie doll. (the first Beanie Babies?). Lowe was astonished by the passionate intensity of the players. He Knew he was on to something!. One slip of the tongue later and ñBingoî was born.

And then the churches came!
The game, seemed, well heaven sent as a potential fundraiser for churches. One big problem: not enough cards. In a large scale setting each game was producing a half-dozen or more winners. Carl Leffler, a professor of mathematics at Columbia University eventually generated 6000 non-repeating number groups for a church in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania. It's said the calculations put him over the edge-- before computers number generation had to be done with painstaking, manual care. But it solved the problem and by 1934 there were an estimated 10,000 games a week in the United States alone.

And now we're online!