The game's history can be traced back to 1530, to an Italian lottery called "Lo Giuoco del Lotto D'Italia," which is still played every Saturday in Italy. From Italy the game was introduced to France in the late 1770s, where it was called "Le Lotto", a game played among wealthy Frenchmen. The Germans also played a version of the game in the 1800s, but they used it as a child's game to help students learn maths, spelling and history.

It reached the USA in the late 1920s, and was originally named 'Beano', as players had to cover off the numbers on their cards by using dried beans and was first played at a carnival near Atlanta, Georgia. New York toy salesman Edwin S. Lowe renamed it "bingo" after he overheard someone accidentally yell "bingo" instead of "beano". He hired a Columbia University math professor, Carl Leffler, to help him increase the number of combinations in bingo cards. By 1930, Leffler had invented 6,000 different bingo cards.

A Catholic priest from Pennsylvania approached Lowe about using bingo as a means of raising church funds. When bingo started being played in churches it became increasingly popular. By 1934, an estimated 10,000 bingo games were played weekly.

In the UK, the situation was quite different, and the game did not become widely known until 1960, when the Gaming Act passed by Parliament in that year permitted such games in members-only establishments. The following year the game of Bingo was brought over from the USA by Eric Morley, the man who was also responsible for the development of the Miss World competition. Bingo in the UK was a commercial proposition, and so (as the saying goes) the rest is history.