Bingo

Beano

The popular game as we know it has a very old history dating back from when it was created in Italy in 1530 as a lottery and was called Beano. In 1778 the game had spread to France and became increasingly popular. Cards were then divided into three horizontal rows and nine vertical columns. During the 1800s the games spread even further and soon most of Europe caught the Bingo bug.

Beano became much more popular when it reached America via a Carnival touring through Germany. In 1929 near Atlanta when a traveling toy salesman, Edwin S. Lowe, came by. Lowe immediately realized the financial potential for Beano. Upon his return to New York, he created his own version of the game by procuring some beans, cardboard and a rubber number stamp. He then invited friends to his apartment to play the game where he saw the pleasure the game gave that he saw at the carnival. During the game, one player had accidentally yelled out “Bingo” and the name stuck.

A priest called Wilkes-Barre from Pennsylvania who began to promote playing bingo in his church community and the idea of using the game to raise funds was born. However only 24 unique cards to play with, the priest was finding the big problem that there were far too many winners for each game. The priest contacted Lowe about producing a large number of unique number combinations for the cards. Lowe again recognized the fund-raising potential of the game and enlisted the help of a professor of mathematics at Columbia University called Carl Leffler. Increasing the number of bingo cards was exactly what was needed to make the game a huge success at churches across the country and a sound source of fund-raising came.

Bingo Trivia