Bingo begins its known history in sixteenths century, with the reunification of Italy. One of the major reforms in Italy was initiation of the national state lottery, Lo Giuco del Lotto d'Italia. Ever since then, this lottery is operated by the state and brings major revenues to the country's treasury. The national lottery was very similar to the Bingo game we know today. As it happens with gambling games, it quickly sprung out to other European countries, winning hearts of people who'd otherwise not touch gambling. Bingo was never associated with "sin" and "filth" of the gambling like the other games was in minds of deeply religious people of that age.

Albeit a little different from the game today, French lotto was very similar in rules and logic of the game. There were tokens or chips instead of numbered balls; and no computing technology existed to print random lottery cards so they were crafted with other creative approaches. There were no patterns in the French bingo by then; a player would win the game when covering a horizontal rows. The Italian lotto that was about to become known and famous as "Bingo" travelled into France. In 1778 the French media was maintaining that the lotto game has touched the hearts of French intelligentsia.

Lotto gained further popularity later on when someone came up with an idea to use it as an educational tool for children. Mathematical, historical, language, natural sciences and other educational lottos came and can still be seen today in any toy store. The numeric nature of lotto was quite instrumental in education of little children for a while.