Bingo is a gambling game that has been around for centuries in one form or the other. Unlike many of its counterparts, bingo is a gambling game that has found a certain degree of social acceptance as well, and is considered a good option for raising money at community and charity events. There are now two main forms of the game – the traditional form, in which players get paper sheets with numbers printed on them, and the online form, in which these numbers appear in matrices electronically, generated by a random number generator (RNG). Since the first time the game of bingo made its appearance, the game has evolved and today, there are multiple variations of the game available. Bingo is an extremely popular game in the UK today, with more than 3 million players playing it online each year.
The History of Bingo
Bingo can be traced back to 16th century Italy. In 1530, there existed a lottery game called Il Giuoco del Lotto Italia, which was very similar to what is today known as bingo. The game continued evolving over time and across different countries, and in the 18th century, the concept of using playing cards and tokens was introduced in France. It was around the same time that the concept of calling out the numbers for players to cross off on their paper sheets was also introduced. The term ‘bingo’ was used in the UK from the early days of the development of the game, in the 1970s.
In the early 1920s, Hugh Ward took a significant step when he standardised the game as it was played in the Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania areas. He also copyrighted the term ‘bingo’ and was the first person to write a book on the rules of the game of bingo in 1933. The popularity of bingo continued to increase and in 1929, Edwin Lowe saw a game of ‘beano’ being played in Atlanta, who used the rules laid down by Ward in his book. The players also additionally used dried beans, a rubber stamp, and also cardboard sheets. He was quite taken in by the game and introduced it to his friends in New York the next year. The game became extremely popular and he ended up creating two versions of it – one with 12 cards and another with 24 cards.
In 1934, Lowe was approached by a Catholic priest to use bingo to raise funds for the church, and since then, bingo has remained a game that is frequently used at social and community events and also to raise funds. Towards the last part of the 20th century, bingo made its first appearance online, and today, it continues to be a very popular online gambling game, with dedicated websites and software for it.
The Online Bingo Revolution
The Internet revolutionised a lot of things in our world, and that include the gambling industry as well. Online gambling became very popular, and soon all gambling games, including bingo, were available online. One of the earliest online bingo games was Bingo Zone, a game that was launched in 1996. In 1998, another popular bingo game called Bingo Blitz was launched by Uproar. Today there are countless online bingo sites where players can play the games available for fun or for real money.
If you are an online bingo enthusiast from the UK, there are a number of online bingo websites that you can visit to have a great time playing online bingo – why not start with our list of the top 10 online bingo sites.