Determining the Origins of Bingo

While it is a very simple game to play, the history of Bingo, its shaping and development, actually transcends continents, beginning in Europe and moving on to the Americas and then the rest of the world.

The origin of Bingo can be linked with the history of the lottery, because at the heart of it, that is what the game is all about. During the 15th century, lottery games based on cards became wildly popular in Italy.

One such game, Lo Giuoco del Lotto D`Italia thrived in spite of the opposition of the Church. In the 17th century, the lotto became all the rage in France, and was played with a 9x3 card with numbers printed on it. For all intents and purposes, it was the 90 ball Bingo game.

As European settlers traveled to the New World, they brought along their pastimes wit them, and it was here that the history of Bingo underwent its next major development. The game took off slowly, but by the 1920s a variation of the game (beano) was being played. It was in the 1930s, however, when Edwin Lowe, a salesman, and Carl Leffer, a math teacher,

It was Lowe who coined the phrase Bingo, while Leffner was responsible for producing the random numbers on the cards. However, he had to generate the numbers randomly, as there were no machines available at the time. According to legend, the task proved so stressful the professor became insane.

The game became a huge success, and in the most ironic twist in the history of Bingo, Lowe's biggest customers would turn out to be church groups promoting charity gatherings, which was certainly a far cry from its beginnings when the Vatican opposed it. To this day, charity and fund raising events sponsored by the church regularly feature the game.

The widespread popularity of the game would eventually to several groups and companies to develop the game further, and give away bigger cash prizes. In time, Bingo would eventually become not just a game, but a social event as well.

The prizes given at such occasion vary widely; while church sponsored events tend to focus more on gifts in kind, plenty of websites and commercial halls offer thousands of dollars in cash.

As the 1990s drew to a close, Bingo history would again be rewritten as it began to appear on the Internet. Now more than ever, the game is within reach of more and more people.