In Italy in the 1530s a lottery was invented that’s still played in Italy each Sat. This is where the game of Bingo originated. The game travelled to France in the 1770s and was at first played among made Frenchmen. The game then travelled further into Europe reaching Germany, where they selected to use it as a tool to help their youngsters learn history, spelling and math. Finally, the game reached Atlanta, Georgia in 1929 where it came to be known as ‘beano’. It was played at carnivals and carnivals round the country. Each player had some dried beans and a card containing numbered squares – this was split into 3 rows and 9 columns. There had been a caller who drew random discs numbered from one to ninety from a cigar box or a bag. The elected number drawn out was then roared to waiting players. The players used their beans to cover up the matching number on the card. The winner would be the first one to cover up a complete row of numbers.
When this occur the player screamed ‘beano’ to warn everybody they had won. A Big Apple toy salesperson, Edwin S Lowe, was visiting a country fair one day when he witnessed a lady roar ‘Bingo. ‘In her passion to inform everybody she had covered all her numbers, she became dumb and roared ‘Bingo’ rather than ‘beano’. This blunder eventually galvanized Lowe and he rushed back to NY to develop and market a new game – Bingo. Lowe’s first commercial version of the game retailed at $1 for a twelve card set and $2 for 24 cards.
A clergyman from Pennsylvania noticed that he could raise some much required funds for his church by running Bingo games, but he shortly discovered a difficulty. When he brought this to Lowe’s attention Lowe employed a mathematics professor, Carl Leffer, to help him increase the quantity of Bingo mixtures. By 1930 they’d invented over six thousand Bingo cards – apparently at the price of Leffer’s reason. Word shortly spread that Bingo was a straightforward and enjoyable way to raise money. By 1934 it was calculated that over ten thousand games a week were being played. Having been unable to patent his invention, Lowe freely authorized his competition to pay him a dollar a year and for that he happily let them call their games ‘Bingo’ too.