Rochester COA celebrates bingo’s birthday with December games

Nov 30, 2021

Bingo’s birthday month is in December, so come and play a game or two this month at the Rochester Senior Center to celebrate.

Bingo is played three times per week at the senior center. Bingo is every Monday at 1 pm, every Wednesday at 12:30 pm and every Friday at 1 pm.

Bingo is a popular game of chance often played for cash or prizes. The players are given a “bingo card” with a pattern of random numbers and one player reads out a series of randomly drawn numbers.

The object is to be the first to complete a specific pattern (such as “five in a row”). The winner calls out “Bingo!” and collects their prize.

The game began in Italy in 1530 as “LoGiuoco del Lotto D’Italia,” and is still played there today, almost every Saturday.

The French adopted the game in the 1770s as “Le Lotto.”

Germany put an academic spin on the pastime a century later turning it into an educational game for children, tying in lessons on various subjects.

Bingo arrived in North America in 1929, where it was first called “ beano.”

Edwin Lowe, a New York salesman, modernized the game by hiring mathematician Carl Leffler, who developed thousands of combinations of numbered game cards.

Lowe reportedly changed the name to “bingo” when a winner shouted the word one day by mistake.

A Catholic priest approached Lowe in the thirties about using bingo as a church fundraiser, thus kicking off the decades-long association of the game with the American Catholic community.

The game is also popular in casinos, though casino bingo has declined in many areas due to rising taxes, smoking bans and the rise of online gaming.

Here’s a fun fact for you: Edwin Lowe, the man who modernized bingo, also invented Yahtzee!