1530 Italy.

Bingo starts its roots as a simple gambling game with a lottery called Lo Giucco del Lotto D’Italia played on a Saturday. This is the earliest recorded Bingo style lottery game.

1770 France.

Le Lotto, or Bingo arrives in France and is the domain of the wealthy male. They have 90 numbers that can be selected and the game cards were all different. A caller would take a numbered token from a bag, and players would cover the number if it was on their card. The first to get a horizontal line won.

1880 Germany.

Bingo is used to teach maths to children.

1929 USA.

Beano starts being played. Players have simple number cards and a caller calls out numbers. If the number is on your card you put a dried bean on it. If you have a line of beans you shout “Beano”. Edwin S. Lowe sees the game being played and plans to develop it as a toy.

1930 USA.

Mr Lowe develops Beano cards to have many thousands of combinations of numbers and after one punter mistakenly called “Bingo”, the name sticks. Bingo is used by a catholic priest to raise funds for a charity, and it is estimated that about 10,000 games a week are being played in America.

1968 In the UK.

Bingo is regulated in the Gaming Act 1968 but can only be played in members-only clubs. Many of the clubs used to be dance halls, and were quite plush. The idea of Bingo being an evening’s entertainment, to be dressed up for, was encouraged, and showbiz tactics were used to make games glitzy and exciting, with numbers having names like 88 being two fat ladies, 11 being legs eleven. The development of large Random Number Generators to make sure the balls were allocated fairly and randomly and purpose-built Bingo halls continued the games’ popularity into the 1980s.

1986 UK.

National Bingo Game launched, and is played in Bingo halls. The same game is played simultaneously in all the halls, with a prize payout.

2003 UK.

First UK Bingo sites launched. Mainly female players.

2004 UK.

First multi-player Bingo sites launched allowing players to chat to one another while playing the game.