48 Fun Facts About Bingo

British bingo callers announce the number 57 with a nod to which food brand's famous slogan?

Heinz: the call is 'Heinz varieties', after the '57 Varieties' slogan Henry Heinz coined in 1896, when his company already made more than 60 products.

In British bingo calling, which phrase announces the number 88?

Two fat ladies: callers saw a pair of round figures in the two eights, and players traditionally shout back 'wobble, wobble'.

A standard American bingo game draws from numbers 1 to what?

75: fifteen numbers sit under each of the five letters, so a call such as 'N-36' tells players exactly which column to check.

The middle square on an American bingo card is marked as what?

A free space: every player starts with it covered, so any line through the centre of the card needs only four called numbers instead of five.

British bingo callers announce the number 21 with which phrase?

Key of the door: 21 was the traditional age of majority in Britain, and callers who want a change can hail it as a 'royal salute', after the 21-gun kind.

About how many different American-style bingo cards are mathematically possible?

552 septillion: printing a trillion cards a second would still take more than seventeen million years to run through them all.

British bingo callers announce the number 50 with which term borrowed from darts?

Bullseye: the centre of a dartboard scores 50, though some callers skip the darts and sing 'five-oh, five-oh, it's off to work we go' instead.

Bingo tycoon Edwin Lowe built the Tallyho, a 1960s resort hotel with no casino, in which city?

Las Vegas: the Tallyho struggled without gaming and closed within a few years, and in 1966 it reopened as the Aladdin, casino included.

According to legend, the name 'Bingo' came from a player accidentally shouting it instead of what?

Beano: Lowe said a friend at his New York game got so excited at winning that she stammered out the wrong word, though the name's true origin is unknown.

Bingo's popularity soared in the Great Depression when which institutions adopted it as a fundraiser?

Catholic churches: Lowe said a priest in Wilkes-Barre tried the game to rescue his parish finances, then complained that every round produced too many winners.

Bingo descends from a game of chance played in Italy by about 1530, called what?

Lotto: it began as an Italian state lottery around 1530, and the French later turned it into a parlour game played on numbered cards.

In British bingo, the nickname for number 10 changes whenever a new person takes which job?

Prime minister: the call names whoever lives at 10 Downing Street, which is why callers in Tony Blair's years shouted 'Tony's den'.

A 19th-century German bingo-style game was designed to drill children in what?

Times tables: the game of chance had a second life as a teaching aid, with other 19th-century sets drilling spelling, animal names and history.

The special ink markers bingo players use to cover their numbers are called what?

Daubers: these fat marker pens, known as dabbers in Britain, let a player mark numbers fast enough to keep up with several cards at once.

British bingo callers announce the number 26 with the name of which pre-decimal coin?

Half a crown: the coin was worth two shillings and sixpence, written 2/6 and spoken as 'two and six', so the number 26 inherited its name.

In British bingo calling, which rhyming phrase announces the number 66?

Clickety-click: the rhyme with sixty-six was practical, because a nickname carried across a noisy hall better than a bare number.

British bingo is played with how many numbered balls?

90: the top ball is hailed as 'top of the shop', and because the count stops there, 89 gets the call 'nearly there'.

British bingo callers announce the number 17 with the title of which ABBA hit?

Dancing Queen: the song's heroine is seventeen, so its title became the call that follows sixteen's 'never been kissed'.

British bingo callers traditionally announce the number 9 with which phrase?

Doctor's orders: Number 9 was a laxative pill that British army doctors handed out to ailing soldiers, and the name stuck to the bingo ball.

Which long-running BBC television contest was created by bingo promoter Eric Morley?

Come Dancing: the ballroom contest ran for nearly half a century, and Morley later filled the same kind of dance floors with bingo players.

Britain's bingo halls blamed a slump in trade from 2007 on which new law?

The smoking ban: one veteran hall manager called it 'a bit of a shock', and the trade has since blamed bingo tax and online rivals for further closures.

What phrase does a UK bingo host traditionally say to signal the game is starting?

Eyes down: it tells players to fix on their tickets, because a winner who fails to shout before the next number is called can lose the prize.

A 2014 advert from Britain's Conservative Party hailed Budget tax cuts on bingo and which drink?

Beer: the Budget had cut the duty on both, and the party chairman's advert said this would help 'hardworking people do more of the things they enjoy'.

During the Great Depression, which businesses staged cash-prize bingo games for their customers?

Movie theatres: the game was known as Screeno, and on one night a week patrons are said to have been given a free card with their ticket.

Which rhyming call do British bingo callers use for the number 2?

Doctor Who: callers who prefer a picture to a rhyme use 'one little duck' instead, after the shape of the digit.

Which future late-night television announcer worked as a travelling bingo caller in New England as a teenager?

Ed McMahon: Johnny Carson's future sidekick went from calling numbers to selling vegetable slicers to tourists on the Atlantic City boardwalk.

Miniature sets of which board game, made by Edwin Lowe's bingo company, went overseas with American troops in the Second World War?

Chess: the pocket sets were a sideline for a firm built on bingo, a game Lowe never managed to protect from dozens of imitators.

Which tribe, later the buyer of the Hard Rock brand, pioneered tribal gaming with a high-stakes bingo hall in the 1970s?

Seminole: the Florida tribe put its bingo profits into schools and infrastructure, and other tribes copied the idea until Congress regulated tribal gaming in 1988.

In British bingo, the call 'Was she worth it?' is a joke about the old price of what?

A marriage licence: the number called matched the old fee in shillings and pence, and players traditionally shout back 'every penny!'

Edwin Lowe said he hired a mathematics professor from which New York university to devise 6,000 unique bingo cards?

Columbia: the professor was Carl Leffler, and bingo legend insists that the ever-harder hunt for non-repeating cards drove him insane.

Hugh J. Ward standardised bingo at 1920s carnivals in and around which Pennsylvania city?

Pittsburgh: Ward registered a rulebook titled 'Bingo' in 1933, pitching the game to shops as a way to advertise goods, but he never renewed the copyright.

A 2003 update of Britain's bingo calls rhymed the number 71 with which pop star's 'bum'?

J-Lo: 'J-Lo's bum' ousted the old call 'bang on the drum', while Gareth Gates took over number 8 and Ali G number 30 in the same shake-up.

British bingo callers announce the number 77 with the name of which Los Angeles street?

Sunset Strip: the call comes from the television detective series 77 Sunset Strip, which was on air when Britain's bingo halls boomed in the early 1960s.

British bingo callers traditionally announce the number 1 with which phrase?

Kelly's eye: the Kelly is reputedly the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly, though nobody can say for certain where the phrase came from.

The Neapolitan home version of bingo, traditionally played by Italian families at Christmas, is called what?

Tombola: players win small prizes along the way for two, three, four and five numbers in a row before somebody fills a card and shouts the game's name.

British bingo callers greet the number 53 with a cry of 'here comes' which famous screen car?

Herbie: the Volkswagen Beetle of Disney's Love Bug films races as number 53, and players often answer the call with 'beep beep!'

An online game launched in the 1990s crosses bingo with which casino staple?

Slots: the game is Slingo, whose name splices slots and bingo, and its makers date it to 1994.

In which country do bingo players call out 'Reach!' when they are one square away from winning?

Japan: the word is 'riichi', the same call a mahjong player makes when one tile short of a winning hand.

British bingo callers announce the number 14 with the name of which annual celebration?

Valentine's Day: 14 February gives the number its romance, straight after 13 has gone out as 'unlucky for some'.

Which comedian hosted the BBC's bingo-based quiz show of the 1980s?

Bob Monkhouse: he opened each show with topical stand-up, and a wrong answer got a player 'wallied', frozen out of the next question.

Which holiday camp chain introduced modern bingo calls devised by a professor in 2003?

Butlins: its camps at Skegness, Bognor Regis and Minehead swapped 1950s calls for the likes of 'Jimmy Choo' at 32 and 'chicken vindaloo' at 52.

Which family game did bingo populariser Edwin Lowe's company launch in 1956?

Yahtzee: as Lowe told it, a Canadian couple who played it on their yacht traded him the rights for 1,000 sets, and his Yahtzee parties made it a hit.

In which southern state did toy salesman Edwin Lowe stumble on the carnival game he would turn into bingo, in 1929?

Georgia: Lowe stayed late into the night quizzing the booth's operator, then took the idea home to New York and tried it on his friends.

Which toy company bought the E. S. Lowe Company in 1973 for $26 million?

Milton Bradley: the deal brought it Lowe's whole catalogue of bingo sets, toys and games, and the company was itself later absorbed by Hasbro.

Eric Morley, who made bingo big business in 1960s Britain, also founded which beauty pageant?

Miss World: Morley launched it in 1951 to tie in with the Festival of Britain, and it began life as a publicity vehicle for his entertainment company.

By what traditional name was bingo long known in Britain?

Housey-Housey: the name came out of the armed forces, where the game was played long before a 1960 gaming law brought it into commercial halls.

As of 2025, which British bingo chain is part of the Rank Group?

Mecca: the name comes from a ballroom company, which began filling its dance halls with bingo players in the early 1960s.

British bingo callers announce the number 23 with the opening words of which psalm?

The Lord is my shepherd: Psalm 23 supplies the line, a solemn turn straight after the hall has quacked along to 'two little ducks' for 22.