Extraordinarily popular in the United States, is Bingo a game of chance that has its origins in common with lotto. These stem from an epoch long time ago. It is even mentioned an ancestor of this game under the Roman Empire! But the first trace of Bingo was confirmed in the 16th century in Italy. At that time Bingo was called « Lo Giuco De Lotto ». It was a national lottery game, launched in 1530! 2 centuries later, Bingo was practiced by the aristocracy and the French bourgeoisie. The principle was based on a grid containing numbers.
A random drawing of numbers took place and the winner was the first who get a horizontal line after having checked the numbers on its grid. In Germany was also practised a kind of bingo, very popular, which taught children to recognise numbers and spell words.In the early 30's, the United States adopted the "Beano" of Germany in Atlanta. Every player of Beano has a grid containing numbers. The numbers are randomly drawn from a cigar box. If a player has the drawn number on his card he can put a bean on this number. The winner is the firs player who has a coherent line of beans on his card (vertical, horizontal or diagonal). Now he shouts “Beano”, during a memorable part, in the excitation of the game, a winner will exclaim “Bingo”, in the place of Beano. The word remained und the variant of the lot was adopted to the present name.
Bingo is practiced in 2 variants
You but 90 balls in one urn. The playing cards are composed of 6 different paperboards. Every paperboard comports 15 numbers between 1 and 90. The player checks the drawn numbers from the urn, with the goal to create lines on his cardboard. There are different gains, depending if you have one full line, two full lines or all lines of the paperboard. The player who builds a winner paperboard shouts “Bingo”.
There 15 balls in 5 different containers, each carrying a letter of the word BINGO. The playing cards have 25 caskets: 24 caskets numbered from 1 to 75, and a central casket which is marked with “free”. When the balls fall, the player checks the fallen number. The goal is to build a line on the card. The player who succeeds exclaims then "Bingo." And its gain depends on the line, if the line is vertical, horizontal or diagonal.