To discover where the name Bingo first emerged we have to head back to a time when Wall Street crashed, the Palestinians and Jews started rioting over control of the Western Wall, and a New York toymaker by the name of Edwin S. Lowe found himself in Jacksonville, Georgia, where a stroke of good fortune would ensure that online bingo fans everywhere would forever know his name.

The year was 1929, when Lowe found himself in a carnival on the outskirts of Jacksonville. All of the booths were closed except one, and there was a hive of activity surrounding it. Muscling his way through the crowd, Lowe could see a horseshoe shaped table covered with an assortment of numbered cards and beans.

There was one person in charge of proceedings and his job was to pull an array of small wooden discs from a cigar box, whilst simultaneously shouting out the number contained thereon. Lowe noticed that everyone in the crowd was holding small cards containing numbers, and they would cross the ones off that were being called by the man in charge of the table. This behaviour continued until one person had crossed off a line of numbers either horizontally, vertically or diagonally; and followed up this action by shouting the word ?Beano? at the top of their voice.

After the carnival had ended, Lowe approached the owner of the game and asked him how he had come by it. The man told him that he had seen it being played whilst traveling with a carnival in Germany. He told Lowe that they called the game Lotto.

Back home in New York Lowe invited a few friends over and started to play the game he had seen in the carnival. His friends started to get excited and when a woman won the first game she stuttered as she shouted the word ?Bingo,? instead of ?Beano,? and the name has stuck ever-since.