Bingo is all fun and games — until you realize that just one alphanumeric pair is standing between you and victory. The anxiety builds until you finally hear the magic combination: “N31.” You immediately jump up and shout, “Bingo!” But what does that word mean? Yes, it’s the name of the game of chance in which you need to have the right combination of numbers lined up on your board, but where did the word come from?
Bingo halls can be found everywhere, and iterations of music bingo, drag bingo, and other themed events remain popular, but the etymological roots of the word are murky. The truth is that we may never know exactly where “bingo” came from, as the theories are tenuous. The best information from the Online Etymology Dictionary links the word to a recreational context, as “bingo” was used as slang for alcohol as far back as the 1690s, prior to making its way into American English around the 1850s.
Around the early 20th century, “bingo” became used as an exclamation to indicate completion or correctness. Lexicographers from the Oxford English Dictionary speculate that “bingo” might be a shortened version of the phrase “bingo-bango,” which has been used since the 1880s to describe a series of quick blows.
It wasn’t until the 1920s that an already-popular game of chance embraced “bingo” as its title. One (possibly apocryphal) origin story claims the name change came about because of a mistake. Prior to bingo, people played a variant called “beano,” in which players covered their numbers with dried beans. It’s said that a winning player got so excited, they accidentally shouted “bingo” instead of “beano,” and a new title for the game was born. The next time you’re playing bingo, try the old-fashioned version with some dried beans and see how your luck holds.
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