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According to the animated bulldog who fronts the launch ad on TV for Brit Bingo, the game is "as British as fish and chips, the orderly queue, afternoon tea, village cricket, and barbecues in the rain" and people in the UK have loved playing it "for over 200 years" [1].
That's not quite true, however ...
For the game itself - not originally called bingo - is thought to have had its
roots in the Italian lottery of the 16th-century. From Italy, this game of chance migrated to France and was popular amongst members of the aristocracy. It only spread to Great Britain later, during the early 18th-century, via the Royal Navy [2].
As for the first modern version of the game, this emerged on the American carnival circuit in the early 1920s, and is attributed to Hugh J. Ward, who secured a copyright in 1924 and wrote a book of rules in 1933. When, for marketing purposes, he decided to come up with a catchy new name, Bingo was born [3].
Following the Betting and Gaming Act of 1960, which legalised certain forms of gambling, bingo became insanely popular across the UK - indeed, I remember playing bingo with my mum and dad at the seaside, when I was a young child in the early 1970s.
Since 2005, however, bingo halls have seen a marked decline in revenues and many have been forced to close; high taxes, the smoking ban, the covid pandemic, and the rise of online gambling - including bingo sites such as Brit Bingo - proving to be a fatal combination of factors [4].
Notes
[1] Click here to watch on YouTube. The ad was made by Brit Bingo in collaboration with Double Dice Films, a London-based video and animation production company.
[2] Cultural commentators believe that the Maltese introduced the game to British
sailors in the early 1800s (at this time, the Royal Navy housed their
Mediterranean fleet in Malta). By the end of the 19th century, Tombola - or Housey-Housey as it also became known - was the game of choice throughout the military.
[3] The origin of the English slang term bingo is uncertain, though it is said that customs officials used to employ it as an exclamation of triumph after a successful search for smuggled goods. Some credit toy salesman Edwin S. Lowe - and not Ward - with adopting this name for the game (and it was Lowe who was awarded the 1942 patent for the modern bingo card design).
[4] Having said that, it should be noted that there are still a few hundred bingo halls in the UK, more than twenty of which opened in 2021-22. So, going for a night out at the bingo with your mates is far from being a thing of the past. However, in the 1980s, there were over 1,600 bingo halls operating, so obviously there has been a significant fall in the number of people playing. Those who wish to know more about this decline of bingo halls since the 1980s, should click here.
