Bingo is a game of chance that is played as follows. Each player has a minimum of one card that is pre-printed with differently numbered squares. Numbers are drawn randomly and announced by the host of the game. When players card shows the respective number, then a marker is placed over that square. The first player to cover an entire row of numbers and announce "BINGO" wins the game.

The beauty of Bingo is that the rules are simple enough for anyone to master and with billions of Bingo halls over the world it’s quite accessible, too. From London to Italy to America to just about anywhere it’s possible to play some form or another of the popular game. But there’s a new type of Bingo hitting the scene and people don’t even have to leave their houses to join in a game. It’s called online Bingo and its kingdom is growing at an inordinate pace.

The makeup of the online Bingo business is actually similar to the general online casinos. Just like software is licensed to an organization operating a Poker site, so to a Bingo site needs the same structure in order to exist legally. Downloading is also the same – Flash and Java versions. There is also an upfront fee that must be paid in order to begin playing, just like any other casino site.

Single player Bingo, called “Keno-Bingo,” is not nearly as popular as its multi-player counterparts. The multi-player Bingo types fall into three general categories: Pay to Play Bingo is the most lucrative and supports the industry more than the other two categories of Bingo since there is an upfront fee and bigger pots. The second category is Free Bingo, which is rarely offered on the larger sites. The third category, which falls between the first and second, money-wise, is Game Play which offers small cash prizes or points that eventually add up to small cash prizes. Game Play is either free or requires a very low upfront fee.

Ironically, online Bingo is actually more personable than playing live in a Bingo hall. Almost every Bingo gaming site is equipped with chat rooms, player galleries, and a chat host. The chat rooms provide an opportunity for players to converse casually. The player galleries are like a catalog of players. While this might “break” the usual rule of anonymity, it brings a much warmer feeling to the mechanical atmosphere of the computer. Additionally, if players are making friends over the internet (usually through the chat rooms), they are more likely to continue playing in the sites where their friends are also playing. The chat host is actually part of a paid staff whose sole purpose is to start conversations with players and to develop a sense of community and support. The chat host plays an important role in the functioning of the site since a good host can bring in loads of people while a bad one can drive them away.

Bingo can be traced back to 16th century Italy, originating from the Italian national lottery known as "Lo Giuoco del Lotto D'Italia." The lotto eventually spread to France in 1778, capturing the interest of the intellectual elite and developing a more modern structure. The new playing card was designed with nine vertical rows and three horizontal rows. The vertical rows listed ten numbers, beginning 1-10, 11-20, etc, until reaching 90. The horizontal rows contained four blank squares and five numbered spaces in random order. The resulting combinations made sure that no two cards were identical, and games were played using chips marked 1-90 to place on the corresponding spaces. A caller would then call out random numbers on wooden tokens drawn from a bag until someone managed to cover a horizontal row with their chips. The first player to do so was declared the winner.

Lotto games quickly grew in popularity, spreading across Europe in the 1800's. By the late 1920's, the Lotto game succeeded in reaching the shores of America and became known as "Beano." The game was first played at a country fair in Atlanta, Georgia, where a dealer would select numbered discs from a cigar box while players marked the appropriate spaces on their cards with beans. Winners would yell out "beano!" and receive prizes or money. The game was later renamed as "Bingo" as a result of someone incorrectly yelling "bingo" instead of "beano." Edwin Lowe, a New York toy salesman, made sure to spread the new name and took it upon himself to expand the game. Bingo came in two variations: a one dollar set of 12 cards, and a two dollar set of 24 cards. Soon after, Lowe hired Carl Leffler, a mathematician from Columbia University, to increase the number of unique bingo cards to 6,000 by the year 1930 to meet the rising demand for the game.

In 1934, the popularity of bingo rose dramatically due to a church successfully using bingo as a fundraiser. Word of bingo's amazing fundraising capacities spread quickly, so that by the end of 1934, already 10,000 games were being played on a weekly basis.

Since the 1930's, bingo has never ceased to bring in steady crowds of dedicated bingo players. Today, more than 90 million dollars are spent weekly on bingo in North America.