Bingo goes full circle back to Italy

It is believed that bingo, or a game very similar, had its origins in Italy almost 500 years ago. After the reunification of the country, a national lottery was introduced to raise funds. This is still played every week and is called ‘Le Lotto’, which actually means ‘fate’ in Italian.

Since then, the game evolved into its current day format, with an American travelling toy salesman working alongside a professor of maths to create the numerous card combinations we use today.

The most up-to-date version of this game is online bingo, and its popularity has shot through the roof recently, going truly global and travelling to Australia, Japan, Korea, South America … but not Italy! Ironically, the ‘home’ of bingo has only just sorted out its licensing laws, meaning fans of the game can now get their fix too. At last, bingo has gone full circle and returned to its spiritual home.

Italy already had a huge following in land-based bingo clubs, and with the introduction of free online bingo sites, is it possible that the Italian market will go as mad for it as those in other parts of the world? Chances are yes. Bingo has an incredible ability to reinvent itself time and again.

We can only speculate what the future holds for everybody’s favourite numbers game? Holographic bingo? Zero G bingo?  Who knows? We can’t wait to find out.