The bingo game fever started 5 centuries ago in Italy, as a lottery game and it was
called "La Giuoco Code Lotto". This kind of game became popular all over Europe and soon
it was considered one of the most common games of luck.
Bingo was played in many different ways and it was used for educational purposes as well.
In France for example, players used playing cards,tokens and the numbers were read out
loudly.
In Germany bingo was used to make children learn to spell animal names and learn the multiplication
table.
This game became famous in America from the beginning of 1929, when Edwin Lowe
took the idea of a game seen by him in Atlanta Georgia, to New York, a game called Beano,
played with a rubber stamp,dried beans and cardboard sheets.
That game he witnessed, actually made history when an excited player yelled "Bingo", instead of
"Beano".
Nowadays Bingo is very popular, with almost 60 million players and more then 50,000 Bingo
Halls all over North America. It has changed over the years and today you can play this
game on the internet, in casinos, there are bingo parlors, bingo tournaments and so on.
There are many variations of bingo rules and payouts depending on where it's played.
Usually a bingo card containes 24 numbered spaces and a blank space. The numbers are arranged in 5 columns, 5 numbers in each column and 5 rows.
On top of each column there is a letter, forming the word B-I-N-G-O.
In the first column (B) the numbers are from 1 to 15, in the second column (I) from 16 to 30
and so on and in the last column (O) from 61 to 75.
After all the players bought their cards, numbers are drawn at random until on one player's
card the pattern 'Bingo' will be complete (five numbers vertical, horizontal or diagonal).
Bingo offers great fun for everyone whether you play for big bucks at bingo tournaments or for
pennies at local carnivals. |
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