Who doesn’t want to celebrate their birthday all month long? Well, the game Bingo gets to do just that as the whole month of December happens to be Bingo’s Birthday Month.

 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 someone reads out a series of random 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.

But did you know that the game is almost 500 years old? The game began in Italy in 1530 as “LoGiuoco del Lotto D’Italia,” and is still played there almost every Saturday. Then in the 1770s, the French adopted the game calling it “Le Lotto”, as it became a game for the wealthy. Germany later turning it into an educational game for children, tying in lessons on various subjects.

 It wasn’t until 1929 that Bingo arrived in North America, as a carnival game called “beano”. The name probably came about because the players used beans to cover the numbers on the cards. Edwin Lowe, a New York salesman, c hiring mathematician Carl Leffler, who developed thousands of combinations of numbered game cards. Lowe reportedly changed the name to “Bingo” when a winner shouted that word one day by mistake. A Catholic priest approached Lowe in the thirties about using Bingo as a church fundraiser. Today Bingo is a big charity fund-raiser that raises more than $5 billion every year for churches and other organizations.

Bingo is a popular event at Sonoma Hills as residents play the game four to five times a week. $1 is collected from each player, and each “Bingo” winner is given $1 in prize money for each game they win. Some residents wait days to collect their first dollar of the week, while others rack up the winnings each day! If you haven’t played the game in a while, come give it a try. You may go away the big winner for the day!