The Brief History of Bingo

The history of Bingo, after the Post-Standard: "The Bingo game was modeled after the Italian lottery, 'Lo Giuoco del Lotto d'Italia,' which used a game card with three horizontal rows and nine vertical rows."

"Then some wooden chips with numbers on them from 1 to 90 were placed in a bag and drawn out one at a time. And the first person to fully cover a horizontal row was declared the winner."

"With the help of a carnival pitchman touring Germany the game finally saw America."

"Back then the game was called “beano”. Toy salesman Edwin S. Lowe stumbled upon the game, at a carnival near Atlanta. When playing the game, numbers were called, and players placed a bean on their card. The winners yelled, "beano"."

"Returning from Atlanta, Lowe in his home from New York created his own beano game with several friends. Because of the great excitement stirred up by the game, one player yelled out "Bingo" instead of "Beano." Lowe then created the game bingo and sold it."

"And a parishioner from a financially ailing church in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., was the first to come up with the idea of using bingo as a fund-raiser"