By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JU:Y 22, 2025 | Georgia is a big state, and a lot of history has been made here. Bet most Georgians don’t know that the board game Bingo was first spotted being played “near Atlanta” (from one source) and from another source at a carnival in Jacksonville, Ga. (Jacksonville is on the Ocmulgee River, 181 miles south of Atlanta, and 19 miles south of McRae, Ga.)
History tells that a New York toy manufacturer, Edwin S. Lowe, back in 1929 came across the game being played at a fair in Jacksonville. He was told by the game operator that he had come across the game being played in Germany.
Lowe returned home, and recreated the game for friends. He copyrighted, then wrote the rules, and seeing how popular it became, he decided to produce it as a boxed board game. It was first called Beano, but one winner got excited when winning, and yelled “Bingo!”, and Lowe thought that was a better name.
Lowe’s collaborator was a math professor, Carl Leffler, who increased the number of unique standardized Bingo cards to 6,000, which reduced the possibility of multiple winners. From there, the game took off.
He also created Bingo kits, complete with cards, number discs, and a rubber numbering system that revolutionized the game set-up.
Since then, Bingo has taken off. It’s especially popular in England, where eight percent of the population play Bingo, some twice a week! (A similar version in England is called “Housey-Housey.”)
IT HAD BEEN A WHILE since playing Bingo, but we played three sessions of the game when on a Norway cruise recently. There were about 75 people in the lounge playing Bingo, each with two cards, and it didn’t take long for someone to yell “Bingo.” You earned points, which could be turned in for small prizes. (I won three rounds, gaining a silver key chain.)
Several games were “straight Bingo,” meaning having five spots on your card in a straight line, vertical, horizontal or diagonal. But I won a game where the four corners were the winning combo. Another game called for you to get an “S” on your card (Horizontal first line, second line a single number to the right, third line filled, fourth line only the first number, and last line all numbers.
“Don’t clear your cards!” we were told on this round. The continuing game was to get every number on your card filled. More numbers called out. When someone finally yelled with a completed bingo card covered, there were only six numbers left to call in this long game.
Then a short game. “Everyone stand and take only one card,” we were directed. This time when any number on your card was called, you sat down. It took only four numbers when one “loser became the winner.” This was a relatively fast game, and Bingo on board was fun.
Bingo continues its popularity even though it is relatively simple. It’s been played at certain church halls for years, and today it’s a routine game for retirement homes, and wherever people gather.
And wouldn’t you know it? Bingo has moved to the internet, where it is very much a pure gambling situation, requiring you to put up money to play.
So remember, next time you hear of Bingo, it was first discovered at a carnival in Jacksonville, Ga., population in 2020 of 126 residents. The State of Georgia needs to put up a historical marker in Jacksonville for giving the world “Bingo!”
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