 Do
You Know
Your Bingo History?
The
origins of bingo can be traced to the year 1530
in which an Italian State run lottery game Lo
Giuco de Lotto was originated. The game is still
held
every Saturday in Italy. "Le Lotto" migrated
to France in the late 1700s in a form similar
to the bingo we know today, with a playing card,
tokens
and numbers read aloud.
Throughout
the 1800's, these lottery-type games spread quickly
throughout Europe and many offshoots of the game
were created.
One
popular form had a player's card divided into three
horizontal rows and nine vertical ones. The first
vertical row contained the numbers from one to
10, the second from 11 to 20, and so on until 81-90
on the ninth vertical row. The three horizontal
rows each contained five squares with numbers in
them and four blank ones. The caller would then
draw from a bag of wooden chips numbered from one
to 90. The object of the game was to be the first
to completely cover one of the three horizontal
rows. The blank squares were considered free squares
much like the free square in the bingo cards of
today.
In
1929, a game called "Beano" was played
at a carnival near Atlanta, Georgia. The bingo
game's tools consisted of dried beans, a rubber
number stamp and some cardboard. A New York toy
salesman named Edwin Lowe observed the game where
players exclaimed "BEANO!" if they filled
a line of numbers on their card. Lowe introduced
the game to his friends in New York where one of
them mistakenly yelled "BINGO!" in her
excitement. "Lowe's Bingo" was soon very
popular and Lowe asked competitors to pay him $1
per year to allow them to call their games bingo
as well.
By
the 1940's, bingo games had sprung up all over
the country with thousands of games being played
every week. Today, bingo games can be found just
about anywhere.
 Using
A Dauber Isn't The Only Way To Mark Numbers
What
do you use to mark the numbers on your bingo cards?
If you're like 99 percent of us, you'll use a colorful
dauber. But not everyone does! You can use lipstick,
crayon, pencil, pen or a greasy thumbprint. Anything
you want!
No
rule of bingo games says you must use a dauber.
The only rule says that a number used to win a
bingo game cannot be altered or covered up so that
its authenticity is in doubt. That means that any
method a play wants to indicate numbers that have
been called is OK, and long as the floor worker
who calls back the winning numbers can read them.
Daubers
are handy and effective -- they're colorful, fun
to use and, most importantly, transparent. They
make a clear mark on the numbers, but don't cover
them up. And they're inexpensive to buy. But if
you don't want to use a dauber, you don't have
to!
In
the old days, players would cover numbers with
coins or tokens. Later, we used the hard cards
with the sliding windows. Now with paper, the daubers
are fine. We listed five alternatives above. What
else do you use to cover your numbers? |
