food and beverage

The origins of contemporary bingo go back to 16th century Italy
where the lottery game Lo Giuoco del Lotto dItalia was introduced. The popular chance game was introduced to North America in the late 1920s by the name of Beano. A toy salesperson of New York was responsible for changing the name of the game into Bingo and to the increase of its popularity throughout the US.

In the late 18th century
the original Italian lotto game made its way to France. Historical evidence shows that a game called Le Lotto was popular among the French high society who used to play the game in parties and social gatherings.

Le Lotto used to be played with special cards that were divided into three rows and nine columns. Each of the three columns consists of 10 numbers
while each column had five random number and four blank spaces in it. Each player had a different lotto card where he used to mark the number announced by the caller. The first player to cover one row won the game.

By the 19th century
the lotto game spread around Europe and started to serve as a didactic childrens game. In the 1850s
several educational lotto games had entered the German toys market. The lotto games purpose was to teach children how to spell words
how to multiply numbers
etc.

By 1920s
a similar version to the lotto game
known as beano was popular at county fairs throughout the US. In beano
the players placed beans on their cards to mark the called out number. The first player who completed a full row on his card
used to yell out Beano!
until one night in December 1929
when a New Yorker toys salesperson by the name of Edwin S. Lowe visited a country fair outside Jacksonville
Georgia.

On his way back to New York
Lowe had purchased beano equipment including dried beans
a rubber numbering stamp and cardboard. At his New York home
Lowe has been hosting friendly beano games. During one game
one excited winner who had managed to complete a full row stuttered out Bingo
instead of Beano. Listening to the excited stuttering girl
Edwin S. Lowe thoughts went away. Lowe decided to develop a new game that would be called Bingo.

While Lowe’s Bingo game was making its first steps in the market
a Pennsylvanian priest asked Lowe to use the game for charity purpose. After a short tryout period
the priest had found out that the bingo game causes the churches to lose money. Since the variety of bingo cards was limited
each bingo game ended up in more than five winners.

In order to develop the game and to lower the probabilities of winning
Lowe approached Prof. Carl Leffler
a mathematician from Columbia University. Leffler was asked to create bigger variety of bingo cards that each of them will have unique combination of numbers. By 1930
Lowe had 6
0
bingo cards and Prof. Leffler went insane.

Since then
the popularity of the bingo game as a fundraiser continued to grow. In less than five years
about 10
0
weekly bingo games took place throughout North America. Lowe’s company grew to employ several thousands of employees and to occupy more than 60 presses 24 hours a day.

Now
bingo is one of the most popular chance games in the world. It is played in churches
schools
local bingo halls and land based casinos in the US
the UK
Australia
New Zealand and other parts of the world.