There no doubts how popular Bingo is and it is the favorite pastime of many, especially the elderly that find in playing Bingo a relaxing as well as entertaining means of passing time. The history of Bingo goes back to more than a century and in fact it was played for the first time sometime in the beginning of the eighteen hundreds, and it is also directly descended from different forms of lottery games, having its roots in Europe around the time when the Italians in 1530 played a game called Lo Giuoco del Lotto that was a form of lottery run by the state.
This game then branched off in various directions and one such offshoot became very popular in Europe being played in a different manner to what it is at present and it was a card game that consisted of three horizontal rows as also nine vertical columns and which had numbers beginning with one and ending with ninety, as opposed to the present day practice of numbers ranging from one to seventy-five.
This early form of Bingo made use of five squares with each being numbered and which also had four blank squares and the purpose of the game was to mark off vertical column or horizontal row, while the blank squares were considered as being “free” with a player needing to successfully fill five numbered squares.
Of course, much of the popularity of Bingo can be credited to the depression years and Americans that were affected by those hard times sought in Bingo a diversion that would make them forget their otherwise miserable existence. Next, churches as well as other groups began to realize that Bingo could help them raise funds and thus Bingo made great headway and its popularity was probably at its highest during these times spreading from one coast of America to the other.
During the middle 1930s, there were many thousands of Bingo games being played on a weekly basis, making it everyone’s favorite pastime – at least for those that played the game. With its popularity growing, the State of New Jersey legalized Bingo in the early fifties and a few years later the State of New York too followed suit, and when more states began to realize the immense popularity of Bingo, it reached its zenith with nearly everyone trying their hands at the game of Bingo.
Thus, other countries too became aware of the potential of Bingo and opened their doors to it because they were sure that they could generate a lot of revenue through it, which meant that many more countries climbed on the Bingo bandwagon as well. Even today, the game of Bingo knows no end to its popularity and there are now an estimated more than one hundred thousand Bingo halls all round the world, and the Internet too has contributed to the craze of Bingo with more than two hundred online Bingo halls available online as well.
