The game of bingo has come a long way since the year 1530, which was when Lo Giuoco del Lotto d’Italia, a game that is considered to be a predecessor to bingo was played. Today the game is popular all over the world, and you can play it both offline as well as online, on the Internet. The bingo game version that you find being played in the United States of America and also Canada is called 75 Ball Bingo.
The game of 75-ball bingo is not commonly played in Europe and other countries; there people play the game of 90 Ball Bingo. People say that the game of bingo in the U.S. was earlier called Beano, which was what Edwin Lowe stumbled across in 1929 in a traveling carnival somewhere near Atlanta, Georgia.
Apparently, Lowe brought the game home to New York and introduced it to his friends, and one of his friends shouted out ‘bingo’ instead of Beano, and the name stuck. There were two versions of the Bingo game that Lowe was conducting – a cheaper version, worth £1, which had 12 cards, and a slightly more expensive version, worth £2, which had 24 cards.
More about 75 Ball Bingo
The game of 75-ball bingo, which is what you find being played in the United States and Canada, has a square card with five rows and five columns, i.e. 25 squares in all. Each square is allotted a random number between 1 and 75. All the squares have these numbers, except the one at the center. This square is called the ‘free square.’ The game is called 75-ball bingo because the highest number that you can call is 75.
Each 75-ball bingo game usually completes when a specific pattern is achieved by marking out specific numbers. This is why the game is also known as pattern bingo. Another type of 75-ball bingo is coverall bingo, where the entire grid needs to be completed and not just specific squares that form a particular pattern.
75 Ball Bingo Rules
The rules governing 75-ball bingo are more or less similar to the rules for 90-ball bingo. As mentioned above, the difference is that this game has 75 as the highest number that can be called, while this is not the case in 90-ball bingo.
To play 75-ball bingo, you need to buy the bingo ticket, i.e. the square with the matrix of squares arranged in five rows and five columns, forming a square in itself. Once you buy the card, you also need to have a pencil handy. The game begins with one person, designated the bingo caller, calling out numbers at random. The lowest number to be called is 1 and the highest, as mentioned earlier, is 75.
As the bingo caller calls out the numbers, you need to check if that number appears on your card. If you find the number being called on your card, you need to scratch it out. Once there is a specific pattern formed on your card, which needs to match the pattern to which the game is set, you need to shout Bingo. The first person to complete the specified pattern is declared the winner. This is where 75-ball bingo differs again from 90-ball bingo; the 90-ball version has three prizes while the 75-ball version has just one single prize.
