| Profile |
Welcome to Myth Games Forums, Guest.
Register
|
| Information |
Our users have posted a total of 2262 articles
We have 860 registered users
The newest registered user is wedge55
 Subscribe in a reader
|
| All about edrny |
Viewing profile :: edrny
Joined: 947 Days
Posts: 1
Location:
|
|
|
A Potted History of Bingo
|
 |
Bingo as we know it today has had a long and illustrious history - not to mention a rather unusual one. It all began with a game played in Italy in the early part of the 16thcentury: Lo Giuoco del Lotto D'Italia, which was ostensibly the world's first lottery, and
involved the random casting of lots, proving to be extremely popular, despite
the vehement objections of the Catholic Church. A century later, a derivative
of the game took off in France - meeting with the same anger from the church
which, as one might imagine, only proved to strengthen the game's appeal. Even
at this early stage, the 'lotto' being played looked suspiciously like the modern game of bingo, with unique cards displaying nine columns of numbers and three horizontal lines - like a kind of 90-ball bingo!
Still, it wasn't until the early part of the twentieth century that bingo really started to take off; and it was at this point, predictably, that the game took off in the USA. Initially popular in the more rural areas of the country (where attitudes to the sinful aspect of gambling were perhaps a little more lax), players would cover their numbers as they were called with dried lima and kidney beans, giving rise to the name - you guessed it - 'Beano'! Picture the scene: villagers gathered together in barn, perched on bails of hay staring intently down at the card in their hand, desperately trying to stop the beans from tumbling off all over the floor. Anyway, it took a man by the name of Edwin Lowe to spot the game's commercial, global potential; and to rename it
'Bingo' - the apocryphal tale of which tells that he overheard some
enthusiastic yokel inadvertently splutter 'BINGO!' rather than 'BEANO!' upon getting all his numbers. With the help of a mathematician, Lowe perfected the
manufacturing of truly random cards, ensuring only one winner per game.
So, from these humble origins sprang the game we're so familiar with today. Of course, there are regional variants (the American game is different to the English 'housie', for example), but the spirit of Bingo lies in its communal, working class origins, regardless of its nebulous location today. As well as the school and the church hall, bingo can be indulged in online, with the majority of UK bingo companies providing online variants too. So, if you fancy carving out the future of bingo, you could do worse that give Mecca's UK online bingo site a go - founded by the UK's answer to Edwin Lowe, Eric Morley: a man who previously ran the Miss World competition, and saw bingo as just what the depressed, post-war British public needed - a little bit of fun.
Discuss this news in our forums!
|
|
|
