The Roots
Originally bingo comes from an old Italian lottery that eventually was passed on or borrowed by the French. The old Italian lotto is still in use today after some 4 or 5 hundred years. The French changed the name to Le Lotto and stayed there for a couple of more hundred years.
When an American entrepreneur started using the game at country fairs, the new concept was played with numbered cards and beans as the marker. Hence the name, Beano, and was very popular among the middle to upper class.
One day while playing, in her excitement a woman exclaimed Bingo instead of Beano and the word was coined from that day on as the name of a new American game.
Of course the game has taken some turns from the original lotto in the 1500s. After much thought and innovation within the game, bingo has become nearly as popular to play as black jack. 75 years ago, the cards were simple and only had so many patterns. And before the invention of computers one man alone sat down and figured out somewhere near 6000 different cards with no repeating numbers on cards. They also say he went crazy.
The Future
Nowadays you can find people at the bingo halls scrambling for their favorite seat, or shushing players during a game if unable to hear the proceedings. It has become very competitive and since the onset of online gambling and online bingo halls, bingo has risen and is on a rampage of world domination.
Continue to check out this site as I bring you the rules and variations on this fantastic game of bingo, where to play and how to play better. Yall come on back, now hear?