History of Bingo
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by: stickystebee
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Word Count: 338
The history of bingo is not very complex, but is interesting to know. It demonstrates how games that start in one country can migrate and mutate over the years. A popular game in Italy during the 1500s was “Lo Guierro del Lotto d’Italia”. This game was very similar to bingo, and is played in Italy to this day. It is the forefather to the modern day bingo played in America. The 1700s saw the game migrate up to France, where it was played by slightly different rules. Now, the players used tokens and playing cards. A caller – although he was not called such in the eighteenth century – read out the numbers. One hundred years later, this early form of bingo reached Germany. There, much like today, they used bingo as a way of teaching children in addition to playing it as adults. By replacing the numbers with letters, children learned the alphabet. A teacher could call out a word or math problem to teach the children spelling and multiplication. The game migrated to America sometime during the early 1900s, with a traveling carnival and their game “Beano”, called such due to it being played with beans as the tokens. The man credited with introducing bingo to New York – and thus the majority of the United States – was called Edwin Lowe. In 1929, he saw how much fun the beano players at the carnival were having and decided to play the game at home with his friends. This was where the game “beano” became the game “bingo”. Supposedly, one of the players mispronounced “beano” as “bingo”, and the new name stuck. Lowe sold card sets, a 12 pack of cards for one dollar and a 24 pack of cards for two dollars, thus helping the game spread far beyond New York. Today, bingo is played across the United States ion bingo halls and church basements. It has come a long way from the lo guierro del lotto d’Italia played five hundred years ago in Italy!
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