Edwin S. Lowe, '29
Bingo Promoter and Toy Manufacturer,
1911-1986
Original Bingo Promoter Dead at 75
by Richard C. Firstman.
Newsday (Combined Editions). Long Island, N.Y. Feb 25, 1986. p. 07.
Edwin S. Lowe, who stumbled on an obscure carnival game in 1929 and marketed it into a national pastime he called bingo, died Sunday night at his home in Manhattan after a brief illness. Lowe, who was 75 and also maintained a home in Quogue, founded the E.S. Lowe Toy and Game Co., which marketed bingo sets and other games for more than four decades. He sold the company to Milton Bradley Co. in 1973 for $26 million. The son of an Orthodox rabbi who became a New York real estate developer, Lowe was successful in real estate, banking and hotels and was involved in film and theater production. He produced several plays, among them ``A Talent for Murder,'' starring Claudette Colbert, in 1981.
But it was bingo that gave Lowe his fame and fortune. Today it is a national pastime, a game played regularly by an estimated 50 million people who wager more than $3 billion a year in places ranging from Long Island church halls to South Carolina Indian reservations.
Lowe was a 19-year-old traveling toy salesman when he happened onto the game in 1929. A Polish immigrant, he had graduated as valedictorian of his class at Jamaica High School, then chose the American University in Beirut by throwing a dart at a map of the world, he once told an interviewer. He came home after a year overseas and went to work selling toys in the Deep South during the Depression.
Over the years, Lowe loved to tell the story of the birth of bingo: One night, he said, he came upon a carnival in Georgia where a crowd was gathered in a lone lit tent. Patrons were lined up to pay a nickel for a chance to win a kewpie doll by placing beans on numbered cards. The game was called Beano.
When the game broke up, the proprietor told Lowe that he had taken the idea from a German circus. Lowe decided to quit his job and bring Beano to the people. He took the idea back to New York and introduced it to friends. During one game, a winner got so excited that instead of saying ``Beano,'' he yelled out ``bingo.'' Lowe renamed the game.
In a fateful move, Lowe decided to sell the game to churches for fund-raising. A priest in Wilkes Barre, Pa., liked the idea, but he asked Lowe to increase the number of winning combinations because he had too many duplicate winners. Lowe commissioned a Columbia University mathematician and came up with 6,000 combinations.
The game became a sensation and inspired many imitators. Lowe hired dozens of lawyers to protect his trademark, but a judge ruled that bingo had become generic. Still, Lowe had 220 presses turning out bingo cards.
Lowe's toy company became so successful - marketing other popular games like Yahtzee - that he expanded into real estate, banks and hotels. After selling his toy company, he turned toward Broadway. In producing ``A Talent for Murder,'' he said at the time, ``It's all my own money, and there's nobody looking over my shoulder telling me what to do.''
In recent years, Lowe was active in real estate ventures and other investments. ``He had an incredible enthusiasm,'' said his wife, Barbara. ``But it had to be new and different for him to get involved.''
Copyright Newsday Inc., 1986)
Read about the Origins of Bingo.
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