The History of Bingo!

I have travelled the globe in my many years of working in the bingo industry but the real facts of where bingo originated is fascinating.  I am sure most people would never have imagined that the name bingo only originated through a game called Beano, where a player accidentally yelled ‘Bingo’ instead of ‘Beano’
Would you like to hear more?  Read on…

The Birth Of Beano
Bingo history can be traced back to 1530, it was an Italian lottery named “Lo Giuoco del Lotto D’Italia,” and the game still continues every Saturday in the country ‘bingo originated from Italy’! This game was only played amongst ‘Wealthy Frenchmen and the Germans played a similar version in the 1800s, which they used to help children and students to further their mathematics education.

Bingo, was originally called “Beano” and how this game was played was much the same way as ‘Bingo’ is played today except for the manual called. The dealer would select numbered discs from a cigar box and bingo players would mark their cards with beans and if they were a winner they would yell “Beano”. The game “Beano“ originated from the US and I believe some people still play the game as beano even until this day.

The game arrived in North America in 1929 and was still called “beano” The game was first played at a carnival near Atlanta, Georgia.

The Arrival of Bingo
A New York toy salesman Edwin S. Lowe renamed it “bingo” but only after he overheard someone call it ‘Bingo’ by accident. He hired a professor called Carl Leffler, to help him achieve more combinations in bingo cards. Leffler invented over 6,000 different bingo cards but we heard that ‘Leffer’ then went insane.

Bingo started playing in churches and became very popular, it was estimated that by 1934, an estimated 10,000 bingo games were playing every week.  Many bingo halls in the UK are using computerised bingo systems where a security code is used to identify the bingo winners.

Final Thoughts
Bingo has changed in many ways today, especially with the over grown market of online bingo on the up and many new online bingo sites appearing rapidly. We have seen some bingo halls closing down, which is very sad but the online bingo industry seem to be booming at this time.

The new law that says you can’t smoke in bingo halls etc. Have certainly put a dampener on the UK bingo halls but this has seen an increase for the online bingo sites where you can sit back and smoke and have a cup of tea from the freedom of your home and you even get to wear your pyjamas! (Oh, I like the sound of that! lol)

The first UK ‘Stand alone bingo site’ to hit the online industry was ‘Bingo Ball Room’ although it was a .com site at that time,  they catered for  UK players. The second UK online bingo site was ‘’ Then came along Bingo Mania UK.

Which brings me to a lovely site called ‘Tea Time Bingo’ you certainly can have a very relaxing time at this online bingo site. Grab a nice cup of tea and enjoy the warm, friendly and funny chat rooms.  Why not snatch up a high tea £15 bingo bonus absolutely FREE!