I find it hard to talk about the history of bingo without including my own, my association with bingo started when I was very young when I grew up on the seafront and I must say it was one of the best things that happened to me at the early age.

Being autistic I found life difficult and interacting with others was hard. I started work at the age of eleven and you guessed it I worked at the Family Bingo arcade on the seafront. Before this I was a quite and shy person would not speak to others but I was fortunate that my boss at the bingo hall was a kind and caring person who took me under his Italian family wing.

Over the next few years he taught me how to call bingo, tell jokes and most of all how to converse and interact with the general public. All be it, he taught me from a showman's perspective and that style of interaction with others has traits of how I interact with others even today.

Being autistic I look back and see many things that have improved and saved my life, such as collecting Breweriana, studying Transactional Analyses and none more than being a Bingo Caller. The help and guidance from this wonderful Italian Alfie, my boss and owner of the Family Bingo, helped me in those early years the most with my autism.

That’s a bit of my history but where did bingo originally start?

The first Italians to come to Britain were more than likely the Romans, and after that it is recorded that during the middle ages there wasa lot of trade between Italy and Britain and many Italians visited and probablyremained in Britain during that time.

From the 15th century to the 18th it is recorded many more influential Italians moved to Britain because of the English Reformation, among these religious refugees from Europe were Italian Protestants who found Tudor England to be a safer place to live, bringing with them their Italian cultural ties and most likely the first game of bingo.

The game itself, not originally called Bingo dates back to Italy in the 16th century, specifically, around 1530. The game back then was driven from the Italian lottery, Il Gioco del Lotto d'Italia. But it is thought that the game originated and developed through the Italian immigrants from the 18th century onward.

During the 19th century there were record levels of Italians moving to England, so many, that in 1841 an Italian school was created for poor people at Greville Street in London. The resettling did not end there and the Italians moved from the south to Scotland and Wales. It is certain that the game, as we know it today, was invented by Italian family’s, during that time here in Britain and is far from what many think today that it is an American invention. It is well know that many Italian families moved to seaside areas and moveda round with travelling early fairgrounds of the day.

We must remember many Italians who first came to Britain were very wealthy and many started businesses of their own due to the lack of employment available. Many of them owned and ran their own fairgrounds, stalls and early seaside shops. No one actually knows the full origins of the game but I favour this explanation first given to me by a man who was Italian and who's family came to this country at the same time of the emergence of ice-cream and bingo itself. Again, these early business and show people would be involved in both fairs and seaside businesses and he told me bingo initially came from the Italian Tombola a family game played at Christmas, Tombola is very similar to bingo. The game of Tombola was played for prizes at Christmas when families would gather around with grandparents and the children to play and shout loudly when their cards won and they would claim their prize.

Vintage Italian Tombola Game