The game of bingo evolved from an Italian lottery game held in the 1530s.  The game was immensely popular in Italy and quickly expanded throughout the European continent. When the game came to America it was known as Beano. A game salesman developed free bingo cards with the different letter number combinations and marketing the game as bingo. The American and the British-Australian versions of the game are different.

In America the game is played on cards that have the letters B, I, N, G and O across the top with numbers underneath.  The numbers go from one to seventy-five.  B has number one through fifteen, I has numbers sixteen through thirty, N has number thirty-one to forty-five, G has numbers forty-six to sixty and O has numbers sixty-one to seventy-five.

Players use transparent colored plastic chips, sometimes magnetized, to mark the numbers when they are called.  The chips that work with the magnetic wand have metal threaded through them so the player can clear the cards with the wand at the end of the game. The online bingo game is won by covering the specified pattern.  This may be one column, one row, a diagonal, four corners, an “X” or whatever pattern is announced at the beginning of the game. Players play whatever number of cards they feel comfortable with.  Different places have different card packages, but most people play approximately thirty or more cards.  They usually use glue sticks to glue the cards into a big square or rectangle and then use scotch tape to fasten the cards to the table.  This way they don’t move around.  Most games are played for cash prizes.

In Britain and Australia the casino game is played on a card that has three lines and nine rows without the letters of the word bingo.  There are five numbers in each row with the other space left blank.  The numbers range from one to ninety.  The cards come in single books or in multiple books.  A single book has one page each for the ten colors.  A multiple book has six cards per page with a page for each color. People can also buy flyers which are single sheets of six cards. The players slide a screen over their cards.  They mark the screen with a marker or dauber as the numbers are called. They don’t use the transparent plastic chips that are used in the United States. Games in gambling halls offer cash prizes; games in other places offer non-cash prizes like meals, toys, chocolates, etc.

Britain, unlike the United States, has the National Bingo Games. These are games for which more than five hundred casinos link together twice a day to play bingo games for big money, ₤20,000 to ₤200,000.  They also have a big weekly game with a payout of approximately ₤2 million. There is nothing comparable to this in the United States. Bingo in both countries is a form or recreation and entertainment. People socialize while they are playing bingo at a price affordable in both countries.