Bingo (United Kingdom)

Bingo is a game of probability in which players mark off numbers on cards as the numbers are drawn randomly by a caller, the winner being the first person to mark off all their numbers. Bingo became increasingly more popular across the UK with more purpose-built bingo halls opened every year until 2005. Since 2005, Bingo Halls have seen a marked decline in revenues and the closure of many halls. The number of bingo clubs in Britain has dropped from nearly 600 in 2005 to under 400 as of January, 2014. These closures are blamed on high taxes, the smoking ban, and the rise in on-line gambling, amongst other things.

The game is thought to have begun in Italy in the 16th century, specifically, around 1530 Bingo is believed to have migrated to France, Great Britain, and other parts of Europe in the 18th century. Players mark off numbers on a ticket as they are randomly called out, in order to achieve a winning combination. Bingo originates from the Italian lottery, Il Gioco del Lotto d'Italia. From Italy, the game spread to France and was known as Le Lotto, played by the French aristocracy. Tombola was used in nineteenth-century Germany as an educational tool to teach children multiplication tables, spelling, and even history. The origins of the modern version of the game are a little bit unclear, but it definitely gained its initial surge of popularity with the first modern version of the game appearing at carnivals and fairs in the 1920s, and is attributed to a Hugh J. Ward. The patent for a modern Bingo card design went to Erwin S. Lowe in 1942.

Bingo played in the UK (90 ball bingo) is not to be confused with bingo played in the US (75 ball bingo), as the tickets and the calling are slightly different.

A typical bingo ticket is shown to the right. It contains 27 spaces, arranged in nine columns by three rows. Each row contains five numbers and four blank spaces. Each column contains up to three numbers, which are arranged as follows, with some variation depending on bingo companies and/or where the game is played (e.g. hall, club or online):

Tickets are created as strips of 6, because this allows every number from 1 to 90 to appear across all 6 tickets. If they buy a full strip of six it means that players are guaranteed to mark off a number every time a number is called.

The game is presided over by a caller, whose job it is to call out the numbers and validate winning tickets. They will announce the prize or prizes for each game before starting. The caller will then usually say "Eyes down" to indicate that he is about to start. They then begin to call numbers as they are randomly selected, either by an electronic random number generator (RNG), by drawing counters from a bag or by using balls in a mechanical draw machine. Calling may take the format of simple repetition in the framework, "Both the fives, fifty five", or "Two and three, twenty three", but some numbers have special calls due to their significance. In some independent clubs, numbers ending in a zero are described as 'blind'. So for example, thirty would be called as 'three-o blind 30' The use of blind numbers is generally restricted to independent bingo clubs, as it is not common practice in either of the largest chains of bingo club operators, Gala and Mecca bingo.

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Wikipedia