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 Bingo
is a very simple and easy game. Millions of people all over the world
play bingo in several forms. Bingo originated in Italy as
Lotto in the sixteenth century. It traveled to the French court in the
eighteenth century. Bingo first made its appearance in America in
the early twentieth century.
Bingo History starts with
Beano another name for Bingo. This is because people shouted
beano when they completed a sequence or pattern of numbers. In this form
of the game, a person called outnumbers between one and ninety. Players
had cards with numbers printed randomly on them and had to complete a
predecided sequence. The person who achieved this first was the winner.
 To look at the history of bingo we go back to
Edwin Lowe, an American first discovered this game in Atlanta Georgia.
He modified it along with a mathematics professor and started selling it
as a family game. Soon bingo became popular all over the country.
Several churches and communities used bingo to raise funds for their
activities. Bingo in a sense took the form of legal gambling.
Bingo has taken several educational forms. Today European
countries use it as a teaching aid for preschoolers. It makes an
interesting tool for teaching math to small children. It exists in
several variations for spelling and teaching history.
Nowadays people play the modern version of bingo with cards
printed with numbers between one and seventy-five. The card is a grid of
five rows and five columns and the central square is blank. A person
takes outnumbers randomly from a bag and calls them out. The person who
first completes the pattern of numbers shouts bingo. His card is
checked and if everything is in order, he is the winner. Multiple
winners share the prize money in case of a tie. More than six thousand
different bingo cards are in existence. This gives every player
an equal chance of winning.
There are
several thousand-bingo halls in the country today. These halls
also have fruit machines and other diversions installed so that people
end up spending a lot of money. The main aim of these gaming rooms is to
earn as much as possible from their customers.
One technique adopted by bingo halls is to increase the jackpot
by connecting all bingo machines in a particular area. This lures people
into playing more games spread over several hours. Gaming rooms in Las
Vegas have special playing sessions for their regular players with
moderate prizes except for the coverall versions with huge prize money.
Churches organize weekly bingo games but with small prizes.
With the spread of the Internet, bingo is available
online. There are several gaming rooms where one can play several
cards at a time free. The chances of winning are more than in offline
bingo. One must just verify the credentials of the gaming site
before putting money in any of the games. This ensures that one will get
the prize money if one is the winner. Internet bingo requires
greater alertness because the caller calls numbers just a few seconds
apart. The called numbers appear on the screen and the player must
compare these numbers with those on his cards to make the required
sequence.
Bingo thus has many forms both online and offline.
However, the basic rules of the game are the same for all variations. An
easy game gives the players great thrill and enjoyment at a very nominal
cost. This is the reason for the popularity and success of bingo.
Only history will tell what new and exciting things are in store
for bingo in the coming decades.
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