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Bingo: The Board Game for All Ages

By: Abhi Ramya

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We owe today’s version of Bingo to Edwin S. Lowe, a New York toy salesman, who happened to come across a carnival near Jacksonville, Georgia in 1929. A game called Beano attracted his attention. The pitchman, who derived this game from a similar German game called Lotto named it as Beano because players used dried beans to cover called numbers on the cards. The game takes its roots from a lottery game called Lo Giuoco del Lotto d'Italia played in Italy in 1530 or more truly since 1530 as it is still played as the Italian National Lottery. French are the ones who added drawing numbers carved on wooden chips and playing cards in seventeen hundreds. In Germany the Lotto games are used for educational purposes and as carnival games in the 20th century. Even today educational versions of Bingo are played in United States and around the world. In these versions the numbers are replaced by pictures of animals, mathematical problems, or simple words to teach a second language.

Although there is some evidence that “Bingo” as a word referring to lotto was used as early as in the 1770’s in England, Bingo as the name of Lowe’s game is credited to one of Lowe’s friends on whom he was testing Beano. It is said that in excitement his friend shouted “BINGO” instead of Beano and Lowe loved this phrase and used it for his commercial version. On the other hand, the 6,000 cards with groups of non-repeating numbers were prepared by a mathematics professor at Columbia College, Carl Leffler. You can imagine the immense effort required for this without the help of any computers. Some people joke about Professor Leffler losing his sanity by the end of this grueling task.

Today the most common version of Bingo in America is played with cards with 25 numbers (five columns by five rows). Generally, the first column (B column) contains numbers 1 to 15, the second (I) column 16 to 30, the third (N) column 31 to 45, the fourth (G) column 46 to 60, and the last (O) column 61 to 75. Some cards also contain free spaces that are considered to be filled. In this age of technology, sometimes the printed cards are replaced by electronic boards. A win is called when a predetermined pattern is achieved by filling up spaces using the called numbers. There are several versions played in America such as U-Pick'Em Bingo, Bonanza Bingo, Table Bingo, Horse Racing Bingo, and Quick Shot Bingo.

There are variations of Bingo which are played all around the world some with the same name, some with a different name such as Housie in Australia, New Zealand, and India. While this game is typically associated with the older generation sitting in a fire hall or another gathering spot with 10-20 Bingo boards and paper bingo cards, “lucky charms,” different colored chips to cover the numbers that are called, or blot markers specifically made for paper Bingo cards, one can walk into any Bingo game and see people of all different ages enjoying this game to its full extent.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

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