In the history of different games of chance around the world there are often not many details known about how the game originated or where it got started, but this is definitely not the case when ti comes to bingo because the scholars of history actually know precisely where this game got started: Italy. In the 15th Century, a game known as Lo Giuoco del Lotto d’Italia was begun in Italy and offered up as a national lottery, which is what the Italian name actually means. This game is still played in Italy in the same form and is a very well loved tradition that many Italians take part in regularly. There were big changes to follow in bingo’s evolution as it made its way up into France and then east into Germany. In these countries, it would be further shaped but it was the German people who discovered that ti could be a remarkably useful tool to teach children about a variety of different subjects such as common animal names, the letters of the alphabet and the numbers. This is all before the bingo that we know today existed, but it laid the ground work for what was to come in 1929 when a lone traveling sales man from New York City happened to be visiting the rural south of the United States, just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. There, he spotted a carnival and decided to stroll through the games. He observed one tent game that seemed to have a large number of very excited players. The game holders were actually having to tell people that was enough for the night. The game was called beano and it is the basis of the bingo we know and love today, being played in those days with dried beans as markers for the cards.
That New York City sales man knew an opportunity when he saw one and once he got back to the city, he started to develop what would come to be known as bingo. He created cards by hiring a math whiz to develop all of them for him and then leased his concept to others so that they could sell the cards and hold their own games. This allowed the game to spread very fast all across the US and eventually over to Great Britain where it would be warmly embraced. In both countries, bingo has become something of a cultural tradition although it is played differently in each location. In the UK, bingo would take hold like no where else and the national past time would become a huge business like the world had never seen. The first online bingo sites may have been started up in the US, but it was the UK that would take the online game to new heights by developing a massive billion pound a year industry that has blown away all predictions for what gaming online might be capable of. Today, millions and millions of gamers are always playing either on the web or in land based venues across the globe.