Bingo Is A Versatile Game

by Bill Weston⁽³⁵⁷⁾ Red Star

http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk/

Bingo might summon up images of elderly ladies in smoky halls, but bingo is actually a very simple and versatile game. Its origins can be traced back to a lottery game called 'Il Giuco del Lotto d'Italia' from 1530, and by the eighteenth century it was being played in France with playing cards and tokens. In the nineteenth century it was used as an educational tool in Germany to help pupils to learns spellings, the names of animals and their times tables.

The earliest recorded use of the word "bingo" is found in England in 1776, but in 1929 an identical game called 'Beano' was being played in Atlanta using dried beans, cardboard sheets and a rubber stamp. It was Edwin Lowe, the game entrepreneur born in 1911, who took the game to New York with him and changed the name and call of the game to "Bingo". He released two versions of the game; a 12-card version and a 24-card version. The game proved to be very successful and by the 1940s it was being played all over America. Lowe demanded that one dollar a year be paid to him in order to play the game and use the name. Edwin Lowe also brought us Yahtzee when a Canadian couple showed him a game they had been playing.

The best thing about bingo is its simplicity. As its history proves, it can be played with as little as paper, dried beans and a pen or stamp. And what's even better is that you could replace numbers with anything. In Education, bingo is most commonly used a way of teaching language students numbers. More stimulating than simply learning by repetition, bingo adds the prize incentive to correctly identifying the numbers of a foreign language.

Bingo could be played with almost any set of data. A game of bingo could revolve around a football match, and instead of numbers players are used. When a player touches the ball their name could be marked off the score cards to find a winner. Alternatively, you could watch a road and mark vehicles off a score card. There are loads of ways in which the concept of the game of bingo can be applied to a variety of different subjects for educational gain, but it doesn't end there.

Cultural bingo is a great way of getting a large group of people to communicate and interact with each other. Naturally, social groups will surround themselves with similar people, whether that be age, sex, race, profession or even taste in music. By using a cultural bingo card with tasks such as "find someone who can remember the war" or "ask someone who grew up in a single-parent family about their childhood" you can ensure that people are encouraged to talk to those who might not necessarily come from a similar background. It helps people to interact with each other and also increases awareness of diversity in society.

Bill Weston writes on a number of subjects including Bingo Play, play bingo and bingo fundraising.

Article submitted Thursday, May 26, 2011 & read 25 times.

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