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When Cash Bingo came to America
In the United States, Bingo was originally known as “beano”. In that game, the dealer took some kind of numbered discs form a box, and players marked their cards with beans. When they got the full card marked they had to shout “beano!”.
Actually, the history of this game goes back to 1530, to an Italian lotto known as “Lo Gioco del Lotto D'Italia”. Then, from Italy, the game went to France by the end of 1770, and it was called “Le Lotto”. In Germany the game was played as well, but it was a game taught to children to learn math, orthography and history.
In 1929, when the game first came to America, it was known as “beano”. First, it was played in carnival close to Atlanta. Edwin S. Lowe, a salesman from New York, changed its name to “Bingo” after hearing someone shout “bingo” instead of “beano”. Lowe hired a mathematics professor to help him increase the number of possible combinations on a Bingo card. By 1930, they got 6000 different Bingo cards.
A catholic priest form Pennsylvania asked Lowe if they could use Bingo to get funds for the church. So that’s how Bingo got very popular, since it was played in every single church across the country.
In 1934, 10.000 different games were played weekly and nowadays more than U$S 90 million are wagered on Bingo every single week, and that is only in the United States.
MediaGambling Staff
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