Who they were and where
they went
19 May 2006
By Mark Pilarski
Dear Mark,
Please can you tell me when and where did the
game of Bingo originate? Was it not called
Housey Housey years ago? Yvonne B.
Sometimes called beano, the corn game, and yes,
Yvonne, even Housey-Housey; credit the Italians
for being the inventors of Bingo.
The game was first called "Lo Giuoco del Lotto
D' Italia," but when the French got hold of it
in the late 1770's, they shortened the name to
"Le Lotto." Initially Le Lotto was played
strictly amongst opulent French aristocrats.
I’ll bet those upper-crusters couldn’t handle
the action my Mom managed; at least a dozen
cards at once.
An etymologist I’m not, but my belief is that
the development of the word Housey-Housey can be
traced to England as that was what the popular
game was called amongst seafaring British troops
during both World War I and World War II. Our
boys much preferred dice and a blanket, and as
my Uncle once said, dice games probably kept
more soldiers on their knees than did any
Chaplain.
Edwin S. Lowe, a traveling salesman who
accidentally chanced upon the game at a carnival
in Atlanta in 1929, is credited for making the
game popular, but the word Bingo itself,
suggesting a bell’s ring, was added a bit prior
in 1925 to announce a win.
Dear Mark,
I won our service club’s (I’ll keep its name
private since technically we’re not supposed to
be gambling) Texas Hold’em tournament with the
following hand.
My two hole cards were kings, and on the flop I
received two more making a four-of-a-kind on the
first five of seven cards. I slow played an
aggressive player by just calling his bets, and
he eventually went all in at the turn, when he
caught a full house. He had deuces as pocket
cards and caught the deuce on the turn. Needless
to say he was pretty upset that his hand wasn’t
good enough and said it was a million-to-one
shot that beat him. I doubt that, but what were
the odds of my four-of-a-kind occurring at the
flop? I was just wondering how lucky I was. Phil
T.
Luck of Irish Sweepstakes proportion, nah, but
congrats on your score, Phil, supported by King
David (spades), Alexander the Great (clubs),
Charlemagne (hearts) and Julius Caesar
(diamonds).
The probability of being dealt two kings before
the flop is 72.7 to 1. Catching two more kings
and another card, in this case a deuce, on the
flop to make four kings is 407 to 1.
Dear Mark,
I have read that faro was a very popular game in
the Old West. Did it originate in this country?
Was it ever legal as a game in Nevada? Can you
still play it now? Gordon W.
Faro was a card game invented by the French, who
adapted it from the Venetian game of Basetta,
which can be traced back to the 15th century in
Italy. French gamblers called the game Pharaoh
because one of the honored cards bore the face
of an Egyptian Pharaoh. John Law, an exiled
Scotsman, introduced it to this country by way
of New Orleans, where it then chugged up the
river on the Mississippi steamboats, and then
cantered across the Wild West.
It became a casino game in 1931 when Nevada
legalized gambling, but virtually disappeared by
the 1950s. The last faro game was dealt in 1975
in Ely, Nevada, although it did reappear for a
short period of time in Reno in the early 80’s.
There were three reasons why the game initially
became so popular. It was simple to play, it
held a casino advantage of under 2%, and the
game was played at a very fast pace--two hands
per minute. Faro’s demise was because the
opportunity for a dealer cheating was greater
than with any other card game, that, and its low
house edge.
Gambling Wisdom of the Week: “Sir, I really like
poker. Every hand has its different problems.”
-- Henry Fonda, playing Wyatt Earp in My Darling
Clementine
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