How we put the balls in bingo

It's eyes down and dobbers at the ready for bingo's biggest jackpot.


On September 15, bingo fans will be playing for the first ever £1million cash prize.

The new game - the Big N - will be played twice a day at 500 bingo halls across the country until someone wins the lot.

National Bingo Game Association spokesman Steve Baldwin says: "This is the largest-ever jackpot game in bingo's history."

And what a history it's been - from the most basic bean markers to the Mirror's ever-changing online sites, we take a look at the best of bingo...

It's as old as the pyramids

Despite what you might think the popular game has, ahem, bingo-ing for centuries. Historians believe the Ancient Egyptians were playing with marked cards long before they got round to building pyramids.

Hundreds of years later a version of bingo, very much like the modern lottery, was being played in Italy. In 1530, during the unification of that country, the National Lottery was born - Lo Giuoco del Lotto d'Italia - which is still played today.

The French followed suit in the 18th century with Le Lotto, which was primarily a hobby of the upper classes. A caller would draw wooden discs numbered from one to 90 out of a bag and call them out to players.

Each player had a game board divided into nine rows and three columns and the winner was the first to cross off all the numbers.

But it wasn't until the 1920s that the current popular format was born in the States. Toymaker Edwin Lowe came across a novel fairground game "Beano" at a carnival in Jacksonville, Georgia, where each player had a wooden card of numbers and a handful of beans.

When a number was called out, the player used a bean to knock it off their board. Knock off a straight line either vertically, horizontally or diagonally and you win a prize of a kewpie doll.

"When he finally closed at 3am, he had to chase them out... the players were practically addicted to the game," Lowe recalled.

Back in New York, Lowe showed his friends how to play and one of his party was so excited at filling in the line, she shouted "bingo" instead of "beano". The name stuck and Lowe marketed the first game, charging just one dollar.

Today, bingo has nowhere near the same appeal in America as it does in Britain and is mostly played in half-empty church halls.

In the UK, bingo owes its success to the 1960 Gambling Act, which allowed such betting activities in members-only clubs. The following year, Miss World founder Eric Morley brought the game to our shores.

The invention of the TV had rendered many theatres, dance halls and cinemas obsolete. So when bingo became popular, many of these fine buildings were converted into bingo halls.

And while the Americans might have developed the game, it was the Brits who brought in the balls. To add to the razzmatazz, glass cabinets fitted with fans and filled with numbered ping-pong balls were used to produce the numbers.

But these were difficult to build and unreliable. And in the 1970s, they were replaced by the Random Numbers Generator.

Even celebs can't resist it

Catherine Zeta-Jones wouldn't be the Hollywood starlet she is today if it wasn't for her dad's love of bingo. His winnings meant she could go to theatre school.

Robbie Williams used to play at his local bingo club in Stoke, and pitted his numbers against Kill Bill star Daryl Hannah in the music video to Feel.

In 1999, troubled football star Paul Gascoigne confessed he liked to play once or twice a day to keep himself off the booze.

And it's a long way from fighting Gladiators but Russell Crowe once worked as a caller on the resort island of Pakatoa, just off New Zealand.

He was fired for using crude lingo like "number one, up yer bum". Why are we not surprised...

Bingo has even got the royal seal of approval - HM the Queen herself enjoys a game, although we can't confirm rumours that she prefers to shout "palace" rather than "hice".

The biggest winners

More than three million of us have our eyes down every day of the year, except Christmas Day - that's eight per cent of the UK population.

In 2002, factory worker Paula Young, 39, came close to the £1million mark and became Britain's biggest winner when she won £953,000 at her local Gala in Sheffield.

Before Paula's windfall, the largest jackpot winner was John Kinsey, a 42-year-old steel worker from the West Midlands, who scored £418,000.

The luckiest players live in Glasgow, where 14 National Bingo Game winners at the city's Mecca Forge have taken a total of £618,065.

It's a serious business..

Two women were banned from the Castle bingo hall, in Bridgend, South Wales, in 2002 after they brawled over a lucky chair.

Sandra Fry was arrested for punching Lynn Want, who suffered a broken nose and two black eyes.

In 2004, bingo fanatic George Grace, 67, from Bournemouth, died of a heart attack after scooping £300.

He was buried with his favourite dobber, bingo board and membership card.

Legs Eleven to J-Lo's bum

Bingo calls such as Legs Eleven, Two Fat Ladies and Clickety Click came about in the 1950s to add a lively feel to the game.

After the 70s, though, with the invention of faster draws, callers found they no longer had time to use the rhymes.

In 2003, Butlins revamped the old-style calls and replaced them with more modern references. So terms like popular drag artiste Danny La Rue, for the number 52, became the updated Chicken Vindaloo.

Buckle My Shoe, for 32, became Jimmy Choo and J-Lo's bum replaced Bang On The Drum, for 71.

Michael Edwards, 34, is Gala Bingo's Caller of the Year but he prefers to liven up his act with the occasional rendition of King Of The Road.

Michael, who comes from Nottingham, got hooked on bingo seven years ago when he won £1,000 on his first try. He says the game attracts all sorts of people.

"When you used to think about bingo, it was always old ladies with grey hair," he says. "But nowadays you get lots of young crowds. People will come to bingo dressed for a night out - because that's what it is to them.

"It's all about having a good time with your friends - and winning lots of money."

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