The 90-ball game of bingo had its roots in ancient history and came down through the centuries as a favorite pastime for all kinds of people. Initially there was no concept of a bingo card as it is there today. Flat areas were used to represent the squares needed for the game. As the required flat areas were not available always, the surface of tables started to be used for the game. The flat surface of the table was used for drawing a large rectangle. The rectangle was then divided into three rows and nine columns of equal squares which gave a total number of 27 squares.
Game of Bingo
The first column of empty squares was filled with numbers from 1 to 9 chosen at random. Similarly, the second column was filled with random numbers ranging from 10 to 19, the third with random numbers ranging from 20 to 29, the fourth with random numbers ranging from 30 to 39, the fifth with random numbers ranging from 40 to 49 and so on until you reached the eighth column which was filled up with random numbers ranging from 70 to 79. The only exception was the ninth column which was filled by choosing random numbers ranging from 80 to 90.
Another rule which was followed by filling in the numbers on the table surface was to see that each row had four empty squares and five squares filled up with five random numbers. The empty squares may be one or more squares between two filled squares. This means that you may have one or more adjacent squares in one row but the number of empty squares cannot be more than four in a row or line. Thus you had a total of 12 empty squares and a total of 15 squares filled up with numbers. All the players had to do was to mark the numbers as they were called to form a pattern for a win. This concept has been followed for the bingo card available in the present 90-ball games.
There was another problem which was faced by the operators of the 90-ball bingo game initially. As a table had to be assigned to each player, you needed a large number of tables to accommodate all the players participating in a game of bingo. This gave rise to what is known as the bingo halls which occupied large floor areas having quite a number of tables which could be assigned to all the players. But even then as the game grew more and more popular with each day, the people in England started frequenting these bingo halls in larger numbers. Even the attraction of football matches was abandoned by the British public for bingo halls which found it very difficult to cater to this ever increasing number of bingo fans.
The concept of the bingo cards or tickets changed the whole scenario. Without having to increase the number of tables, now they could sell printed tickets or cards having the familiar figure of squares of rows and columns either empty or filled by a random number. With the advent of the printed cards you could accommodate more people at each table with their own set of tickets or cards. As the business was good and the revenues from these 90-ball bingo games became huge, very soon you could find a large number of bingo halls sprouting up all of towns and cities of England.
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