Facts about Bingo provided by Jackpotjoy.com WhichBingo Site of the Year 2008

Bingo has been around for so long in the UK that it just inherently feels like part of our culture but bingo has a rich and diverse history and there are many bingo related facts that even the biggest bingo enthusiast might not be aware of:

• Although the first documented form of bingo was first played in 1530 in Italy, the version we know today was first played in the United States and was called Beano.
  
  
• Instead of using a dauber or pen like we do in bingo today, players used beans to place on their cards as numbers were called.
  
  
• An all American toy salesman called Edwin Lowe was the man who truly brought bingo to the masses.
  
  
• It is said that the man who helped Lowe to create 60,000 individual bingo cards, all with different numbers on them Carl Leffler was driven insane by the process and lost his mind.
  
  
• The hay day for bingo in the United Kingdom came during the 60s and now over 3 million people play bingo.
  
  
• The biggest win in a bingo hall in the UK was £950,000 which was won in sheffield in December of 2002.
  
  
• Huge amounts of money are given away by the big bingo sites operating online bingo games. Jackpotjoy.com gives away £2.5 million every single day to lucky bingo players.
  
  
• The first online bingo site was launched in the UK. That was in 2003, now there are literally hundreds of online bingo sites.

 The only reason bingo is known by the name it is is because in 1929 during a game in Atlanta a player shouted bingo instead of Beano which was the name that the game of bingo still went by at that time.