Bingo (game)

Entry in progress—B.P.
   
Wikipedia: Bingo (U.S.)
Bingo is a game of chance played with different randomly drawn numbers which players match against numbers that have been pre-printed on 5×5 cards.The cards may be printed on paper or card stock, or electronically represented, and are referred to as cards. Many versions conclude the game when the first person achieves a specified pattern from the drawn numbers. The winner is usually required to call out the word “Bingo!”, which alerts the other players and caller of a possible win. All wins are checked to make sure the person has not made a mistake before the win is officially confirmed at which time the prize is secured and a new game is begun. In this version of bingo, players compete against one another for the prize or jackpot.
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History
The game of bingo can be traced back to a lottery game called “Il Giuoco del Lotto d’Italia” played in Italy in c.1530. By the eighteenth century, the game had matured, and in France, playing cards, tokens, the reading out of numbers had been added to the game. In the nineteenth century, Bingo was widely used in Germany for educational purposes to teach children spelling, animal names, and multiplication tables.
 
Le Lotto was then subsequently created by the French in 1778. This unique lotto variation featured 27 squares in a unique layout of three rows and nine columns. The numbers within the boxes ranged from 1 through 90. Only five squares within each row contained numbers which subsequently led to the design of modern day bingo.
 
Hugh J. Ward standardized the modern game at carnivals in and around the Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania areas in the early 1920s. He went on to copyright “Bingo”[citation needed] and author the rule book on it in 1933.
 
The game was further popularized when at a traveling carnival near Atlanta in December 1929, toy merchandiser Edwin Lowe noticed how engaged the players were of a “Beano” game using Ward’s rules and dried beans, a rubber stamp, and cardboard sheets. Lowe took the idea with him to 1930’s New York where he introduced the game to his friends. He conducted bingo games similar to the ones he had witnessed and Ward had standardized. His friends loved the game. One theory on the origin of the name is that one of his players made bingo history when she was so excited to have won that she yelled out “Bingo” instead of “Beano.” However, the word was used in Great Britain since the 1770s and had migrated to the Pittsburgh region at least a generation before Lowe’s 1930’s claim.
 
(Oxford English Dictionary)
bingo, n.
Etymology:  Of obscure origin, but compare bingo int.
A modern development of lotto n.1   (sense 1), often played in public halls, etc., for prizes. Also attrib.
1936   Time 21 Dec. 26/2   In many a U.S. Catholic diocese during the past few years the simple gambling game of bingo..has served as a prime money-raiser.
1949   N. Streatfeild Painted Garden vi. 57   Such heavenly things were happening on deck… There was a game called Bingo.
 
26 January 1936, New York (NY) Times, pg. XX10:
Other diversion include keno, bingo, “horse racing,” ping pong and the like.
 
23 May 1937, New York (NY)

, pg. 170:
GAME OF BINGO
WINS FRIENDS
Derived from Lotto, It
Invades the Parlors