In 1778, French game Le Lotto was created, with 27 squares on a 3x9 grid, which can be thought of as the first proper version of bingo, even if it didn’t attain that name until Hugh J Ward copyrighted it in the 20th century and published a rulebook in 1933. This basic lottery game was then improved upon in France during the eighteenth century, when tokens and the practice of calling out numbers was introduced. Fun fact: the modern game of bingo as we know it was invented in 1929, though its origins can be traced back to a game played in Italy around 1530.
