Where did the name bingo come from?

Answer 1

The roots of the game BINGO go back to about 1530. An Italian state-run lottery called "Lo Gioco del Lotto d'Italia" started in Italy. The French picked up a form of this lotto in the late 1700s. One version used a playing card with nine columns and three rows, with four free spaces per row.

The game as we now know it was popularized by Edwin S. Lowe, an enterprising toy salesman from New York. Lowe had observed a game called "Beano" at a country fair in Atlanta, Georgia. The game was called Beano because players used dried red beans to mark their cards as the numbers came up. When a player completed a line of numbers, he or she would stop the game by yelling "Beano!," and that player would win a small prize.

It is said that during one game, a lady got so excited by her win that she blurted out "Bingo!" instead of the accepted cry of Beano, the game of BINGO became a hit.

By the mid-1930s, community bingo games were popping up all over the country, churches, social clubs and county fairs quickly realized the fund-raising potential of this mild gambling sensation.