That is simple: to win! Bingo can be traced back thousands of years and is a keystone of our gambling culture. Centuries before we were even born, an Italian game, well-liked in the 1500’s, was generating a massive amount of success. This game is unrecognisable when likened to modern Bingo games yet share the same themes of matching numbers for a successful win. In the US, Bingo evolved from a country fair game called “Beano”, which involved cigar boxes with numbered discs inside of them. The cards were marked with beans and “beano” was yelled if there was a match. The Germans also had their own version of Bingo, yet it was used as an educational tool, teaching children maths and spelling, which is sadly no fun at all if the impact of winning money is removed.
A toy salesman from New York, Edwin S. Lowe renamed it Bingo after hearing a “beano” player shout Bingo purely by accident. With this novel name and a thirst for better Bingo gaming ideas, Edwin hired a maths professor to increase the number of bingo card variations. The card varieties numbered over six thousand in the end and it was said the inventor of these variations went insane.
Soon after the groundwork had been worked out, Lowe was approached by priests who were looking to raise church funds with small stakes gambling games. We all know that Bingo games and church fund raisers go well together and the rest, as they say is history. Church fund-raising today, in the US alone has rocketed to over one-hundred million dollars every week. It is these ‘heavenly’ connotations which make Bingo so appealing, especially to the older generation.