Most historians of gambling games agree that Bingo was first introduced in Italy. The game was first mentioned in late Renaissance sources, dating from around 1530. It is an interesting fact that Bingo was based on a game called Lotto which is the Italian for lot i.e. fate. For the first time bingo was used when one of the Italian cities because of the corruption during the elections needed an entirely new way to elect the governor. Therefore, it was decided to pull random numbers and the man who got one of the winning numbers was to become a governor. In other words, he was really elected by fate.

The game of Bingo was first called “beano” since players then used to mark their cards instead of chips or tokens, with dried red beans. They put beans on their cards which later turn into bingo tickets. It is pretty weird, but in the beginning, Bingo was called Keno. This name was very popular at the end of 19th century. Both names were used by the owners of illegal lottery Keno who used the confusion to deceive the authorities making them think that Keno is not a lottery. That has happened since then the game of Bingo has been legal and the lotteries not. In the end, the game in which people call numbers and use cards and chips became known as Bingo and the game in which people mark numbered blocks or spots on their tickets became known as Keno. However, Bingo was introduced long before the game in “Beano” became popular in the Midwest of America.