The game of Bingo started from the 16the century in Italy. There was an Italian lottery called ‘Lo Giuoco del Lotto D’Italia’ which was played every Saturday. This is a kind of tradition that continues even today. The church in that time strongly disapproved the popularity of this game but this game spread got so famous that it crossed the border to France where it was introduced as ‘Le Lotto’. This game was mostly played by the wealthy Frenchmen from the late 1770s onwards. It used wooden number discs which have now changed to bingo balls used today.

This game later spread to many European countries reaching Germany in the 1800s. This game was played with a slightly different version in Germany and over there, it was played with the purpose of teaching children Mathematics and children enjoyed learning multiplications with the help of this game.

Bingo was introduced in the English speaking countries by Edwin S. Lowe. He was a toy salesman who lived and worked in New York. He got to know about a game being played at a carnival near Atlanta in Georgia. The game was known as “Beano”. Each player had a handful of dried beans and a card with numbered squares. The games dealer selected numbered wooden discs randomly and called out the numbers in front of the eagerly waiting players. Each time a number was called out which was on the player’s card it was marked off using a dried bean and the first player with a straight line of numbers had to call out ‘beano’ and was declared winner of the game.

Lowe got so much excited with this game that he introduced this game to his friends in New York. His friends got equally captivated and one female player shouted excitedly “bingo” instead of “beuno” and that’s how this name got such a name.

Lowe soon realized that if the game has to be played with more number of players, he needs to increase the number of combinations on the players’ cards. He did not waste any time and took the help of a Math professor name Carl Leffler who was teaching in Columbia University. In 1930, six thousand different combinations had been created. This game got a quick popularity in the US and Bingo Hollywood is getting popular among the celebrities as well as all other corners of the world.

This game is very popular in the modern society and with the changing technology, bingo can be played online also. Thousands of people nationwide are playing the game without being in the same room in front of other players physically and the excitement of playing this game has not changed since the old times.