The origins of Bingo can be traced back to the year 1530 in which a State run lottery game Lo Giuco de Lotto was originated.  The game is still held every Saturday in Italy.  "Le Lotto" migrated to France in the late 1700s in a form similar to the Bingo we know today, with a playing card, tokens and numbers read aloud.

Throughout the 1800's these lottery type of games spread quickly throughout Europe and many offshoots of the game were created.  One popular form of game had a player's card divided into 3 horizontal rows and 9 vertical ones.  The first vertical row contained the numbers from 1 to 10, the second from 11 to 20, and so on until 81-90 on the ninth vertical row.  The 3 horizontal rows each contained five squares with numbers in them and 4 blank ones.  The caller would then draw from a bag of wooden chips numbered from 1 to 90.  The object of the game was to be the first to completely cover one of the 3 horizontal rows.  The blank squares were considered free squares much like the free square in the Bingo cards of today.

In 1929, a game called "Beano" was played at a carnival near Atlanta, Georgia.  The bingo game's tools consisted of dried beans, a rubber number stamp and some cardboard.  A New York toy salesman named Edwin Lowe, observed the game where players exclaimed "BEANO!" if they filled a line of numbers on their card.  Lowe introduced the game to his friends in New York where one of them mistakenly yelled "BINGO!" in her excitement.  "Lowe's Bingo" was soon very popular and Lowe asked competitors to pay him $1 per year to allow them to call their games Bingo as well.

By the 1940's Bingo games had sprung up all over the country with thousands of games being played every week.  Today Bingo games can be found just about anywhere.

Some Bingo Facts

Bingo became popular in Australia early in the 20th Century.  It was known as HOUSIE.  HOUSIE and was held in large marquees before they moved into halls.

It was played on cards and you placed your token on your card when the numbers were called.  The winner would call HOUSE.  Faster, slicker games are played today.

Number Nicknames

Here are some nicknames used when calling the numbers in bingo:

At the beginning No. 1
One little duck No. 2
One little flea No. 3
Legs Eleven 11
Devil's number 13
Two little ducks 22
A duck & a Flea 23
Two little fleas 33
A flea in heaven 37
Open two doors 44
Clicketty click 66
Any way up 69
Two fat ladies 88
*Top Of The House* 90

How Bingo Is Played

Traditional BINGO is played in person in a large hall.  Players meet at the hall, pay a fee to get in, then the games begin.  A night of BINGO consists of many BINGO games played continuously, one after another.  A single BINGO game proceeds like this:

You will note that there are 75 possible BINGO numbers:  B1, B2, B3, ... B15, I16, I17, I18, ... I30, N31, N32, ... O74, O75.  Each of these numbers is represented by a ball in a large rotating bin.  Each ball is painted with its unique BINGO number.  An announcer spins the bin, reaches in a selects a ball, and a announces it to the room.  The players check all of their cards to see if that number appears on their card.  If it is, they mark it.  When a player has a BINGO (5 in a row, column, or diagonal), he or she calls out BINGO.

The game pauses while the card is verified.  If indeed a winner, the game stops and a new game begins.  If the card wasn't a winner, the game proceeds where it left off.  Each BINGO game proceeds until someone wins (there's always a winner).  Chances of winning every BINGO game has a winning card, so a player's chances of winning depend on the number of cards in the game and how many cards s/he is playing.  For example, if a player has 12 cards in a game with 1200 cards, the chances of winning for that player is 1 in 100.

Bingo Cards

Each player has a number of BINGO cards (players can usually play any number of cards).  Each BINGO card has 5 rows and 5 columns thus providing 25 spaces.  The columns are labeled from left to right with the letters:  'B', 'I', 'N', 'G', 'O'.  With one exception (the center space is "free"), the spaces in the card are assigned values as follows:  each space in the 'B' column contains a number from 1 - 15.  Each space in the 'I' column contains a number from 16 - 30.  Each space in the 'N' column contains a number from 31 - 45.  Each space in the 'G' column contains a number from 46 - 60.  Each space in the 'O' column contains a number from 61 - 75.

Furthermore, a number can appear only once on a single card.  Here's a sample BINGO card: B I N G O 10 17 39 49 64 12 21 36 55 62 14 25 FREE SPACE 52 70 7 19 32 56 68 5 24 34 54 71.  The number of unique BINGO cards is very large and can be calculated with this equation:  // the B, I, G, and O columns * the N column (15 * 14 * 13 * 12 * 11) ^ 4 * (15 * 14 * 13 * 12).  While perhaps interesting to a statistician, the number of possible BINGO cards has nothing to do with player's chances of winning.