It all began with an Italian lottery

In 1530 Italy was united and with it the birth of “Lo Giuco del Lotto d’Italia”. Almost since its genesis the lottery has been held every week on Saturdays. In the year 1778 the news of this game reached France and there the intellectuals were captivated by its appeal. The popular type of lottery as we know it came into existence during this time. 

Nine vertical columns and three rows aligned horizontally was the divided pattern on the cards. A total of nine squares composed every horizontal square row, while in each row there was a random arrangement of five numbers and four empty squares. Ten numbers were arranged in each vertical column: first column comprised numbers running from one to ten, the second column had numbers running from eleven to twenty, the third column running from twenty one to thirty and in this manner up to the ninth column having numbers running from eighty one to ninety. A bag contained wooden chips with numbers on them from one to ninety and each chip was extracted individually. A different lotto card was received by each participant and any called number found on the card was marked as the game progressed. The winner was the participant who managed to mark off a completed horizontal row of all called numbers.

Every type of lottery game became a great favorite all through Europe during the nineteenth century. In order to assist children in studying multiplication tables, how to spell and history too special assorted lotteries for children were created.    

The call for beano might be heard by all of us!

The initial Italian lottery eventually found itself in America by a parade pitchman passing through Germany. It was there that he found the lottery game and realized its possible attraction as a tent game in a fête. After making several modifications to the game, as well as permitting participants to fill out vertical, diagonal or horizontal columns winning columns. Furthermore the name Beano was given to the game.

One evening in December 1929, he was going about his business at a carnival close to Atlanta in Georgia, when Edwin S. Lowe a traveling salesman in toys came into the scene. Lowe decided to visit the carnival to make an early sales pitch. The Beano tent was the solely open one and it was so packed out with people that Lowe couldn’t even get to play.

As the participants enthusiastically waited to hear the numbers being called Lowe watched, and he saw as they used beans to cover up the numbers on the cards. You could feel the thrills and tense atmosphere among the audiences. Finally when a participant called out Beano after a row had been fully covered, Lowe gaped in amazement as the pitchman attempted a number of times to close up and see how the participants demanded he continue to keep the tent open. Only at three in the morning did the lottery games terminate, and even at that late hour the pitchman had to forcibly run the players off.

The birth of Bingo by a slip of the tongue

The huge market possibilities of Beano were instantly imbibed by Lowe. On going back home to New York, he invented his own type of Beano game by obtaining beans, a number stamp made from rubber and a cardboard. He asked friends over to his home to participate in the game with him. He noted once again the intense concentration and thrill that he saw first hand at the fete. As the beans over-spilled on her card one particular participant grew more and more thrilled. On completing her row, she hurried to scream out the accepted Beano but got tongue tied and a bb-bingo escaped her lips instead.

Lowe described how it’s not possible to put in words the weird feeling of joy which that girl’s shouts filled him with. He said that the only thing he could think of was that he would bring out the game with Bingo as its name.  

The first of Lowe’s Bingo games were of two types: a twelve card set at the price of one dollar and a two dollars twenty four card set. The name Bingo might have had a trademark but as the game evolved from the public arena it could not be secured in any way. People emerged to copy the game very soon once Lowe’s success was obvious. The only demand Lowe had from his emulators was that for calling their game Bingo they pay him a dollar a year. And that was how the generic name was born.

The person who propelled the game in churches throughout the country was a priest from Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania due to his church which was sinking under financial strain. The idea to raise money for the church came from one church attendant who came up with the notion of exploiting Bingo. However, having only twenty four individual cards the priest discovered that for every game there were some six winners. He communicated with Lowe and asked him to produce a large amount of individual cards with combinations. Grasping the potential in the fund raising through Bingo, Lowe asked for assistance from Carl Leffler, a mathematics professor from Columbia University.

The production of six thousand new bingo cards was the mission Leffler had been instructed to carry out. His request was that he be paid for each card. However the difficulty was that the more the cards he produced the harder it was to provide novel combinations for the cards. Finally he was receiving a one hundred dollar remuneration for each card. The rumor was that at the termination the professor went mad from the project!