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SOLERA DIAMOND VALLEY | JANUARY 2020 11 By Dick Roppé, Resident After a short hiatus, BINGO is returning to Solera. Pending city approval, the first evening for this renewal is tentatively scheduled for Monday, January 13. Doors at the Lodge will open at 5:30 pm and calling will begin at 6 pm. Games will be held on the second and fourth Mondays each month. Card costs will vary. How about some bingo background? I've patched together a little history from various sources beginning as far back as the mid-1500s when "Lo Giuoco del Lotto D'Italia," or the Italian Lottery, was all the rage. Players had cards with numbered squares and numbers were drawn from a sack. The game made its way to France in the late 1770s and it was a young Frenchman who developed an alternate version. He printed numbers on cards with three horizontal rows and nine vertical rows. The numbers one through 90 were arranged in random order. Again, numbers were drawn from a sack and the first person to cover a horizontal row was the winner. Fast-forward to America in the early 1900s when the game "Beano" was popular at local carnivals. Similar to the French game, but with fewer numbers, players covered their squares with beans and the winner would shout "BEANO!" Legend has it that in 1929, toymaker and game developer Edwin S. Lowe observed a spirited round of Beano in New York and was inspired to create his own version. Acting as caller, he invited a group of friends to play his version using numbered cards. One player became increasingly restless as his card neared completion and when his final number was called, he excitedly called out "BINGO!" and the name stuck. For years, the term Bingo had been used for a similar game in the United Kingdom and likely lent its name to the American version. Lowe began with 24-card sets and developed more than 6,000 card combinations as the popularity of the game grew and became a national pastime. Today, bingo is played and used as a way to raise money at church and charity events. Interestingly, Lowe also developed the game Yahtzee. Bingo is now back at Solera. Get those daubers ready! B-I-N-G-O . . . BINGO IS THE GAME!

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