You’re probably familiar with the game of bingo. Little kids play it around the house, while their parents or grandparents play it in the church social hall. But there’s probably a lot you don’t know about this game.

For instance, you probably don’t know how bingo originated. Well, don’t feel bad, because nobody really knows for sure. The most likely story is that bingo evolved from the Italian lottery, which dates back to 1530 and is still popular today, known as lotto. It spread throughout Europe and then crossed the Atlantic Ocean. The current form of the game dates back to around 1880. In the early twentieth century, it was known as bean and played at county fairs around the United States. A caller would take numbered disks from a cigar box and players would use dried beans to mark their cards, until somebody yelled, “Beano!”

Among the visitors at one of those fairs in the 1930s, according to the story, was a toy salesman from New York, Edwin S. Lowe. While he was hanging around the bean area at a carnival in Florida, he was struck by the popularity and simplicity of the game. He introduced the game in New York. It’s reported that one game was won by a woman who called out, in flustered excitement, “Bingo!” Lowe put two and two together-the great popularity of that simple game and the unusual accidental name and won when he developed and marketed the game.

Bingo became even more popular as community organizations would sponsor games to raise money. Legalized first in New York and New Jersey in the 1950s, it has spread beyond churches and social halls into casinos. It’s been estimated that about $10 bilion is wagered annually in some 50,000 bingo halls across North America. In a recent national survey on gambling, 75 percent of the 1,200 Americans questioned stated that they approve of bingo, while only 69 percent expressed approval of state lotteries and 62 percent approved of legalized gaming in general.