The Farmer or Dog Named Bingo?
Is it the farmer or the dog who gets the credit for first naming bingo? The answer may surprise you.
According to some sources, bingo was originally called “bingo-bam” by the British military in World War I. Soldiers would mark off numbers on their arms with a pencil to keep track of their losses.
When they played bingo, they called out the numbers as they marked them off. The game got its current name from British soldiers who called it “bingo-bam” and the French soldiers who called it “bongo-bongo.”.
Others say that the game of bingo was actually invented by an Irish monk named Charles Dolan in 1826. Dolan played the game with friends and decided to call it “bingo” because he liked the sound of it.
Bingo became popular in Ireland and England and eventually spread to other parts of the world.
