It reached the USA in the late 1920s, and as folklore has it, was originally named 'Beano', as players had to cover off the numbers on their cards by using dried beans, but it gained its present name when a player, excited at winning, shouted out 'Bingo!' instead of 'Beano'. Although originally a carnival attraction, by the 1930s in America the game was played as a means to raise money for charities, a practice that continues in the USA today. The American variant of the game is only ever played as charity games, and they usually take place in sparse church and community halls.

In the UK, the situation was quite different, and the game did not become widely known until 1960, when the Gaming Act passed by Parliament in that year permitted such games in members-only establishments. The following year the game of Bingo was brought over from the USA by Eric Morley, the man who was also responsible for the development of the Miss World competition. Bingo in the UK was a commercial proposition, and so the British bingo archetype was quite different to that found across the Atlantic.

Across Britain there were many large buildings that had been rendered obsolete by the rise of the Television; theatres, cinemas and dancehalls. Many of these required little modification to turn them over to bingo games, and certainly some buildings played a dual role as cinema or bingo hall, depending on the night of the week. As their former uses normally indicated, British Bingo Halls were far more plush than their American counterparts, and the theatrical feel was further enhanced by the preferred British method of coming up with the numbers. American clubs simply drew numbers from a bag - in the UK, glass cabinets were fitted with fans, filled with numbered ping-pong balls to produce the numbers. The effect was pure showbiz, but they were easy to rig and unsophisticated, which led to the widescale adoption of electronic Random Number Generators (or the RNG) during the next decade.

In 1968 another gaming act was passed allowing clubs to play prize and cash bingo via tabletop coin slots, as well as establishing a Gaming Board to regulate Bingo clubs, which were proving to be highly popular - far more so than bowling, another American craze brought over at around the same time, but far less profitable. By this time many clubs were being further altered by having floors levelled and cinema seats replaced by proper tables. In fact, the game proved to be so successful that in the 1980s there were several clubs opened in brand new purpose built halls.

The latest development in British Bingo is the appearance of bingo games you can play at home on the internet, which started nearly ten years ago with the still-popular , who use American style bingo cards. bingos.co.uk and Mecca Bingo lead the way with British 90-ball games, called at British speeds! bingos.co.uk and Mecca Bingo are already very popular websites, offering online bingo games that are even better than those played in traditional bingo halls, and bingos.co.uk has now started running bingo games with huge jackpots - like the new £1,000,000 game, in which you really do have the chance to win an incredible £1 million prize - better than even the traditional National Game!