Bingo card cards to overcome the difficulty with randomization. There are two types of Bingo cards. One is a 5x5 grid meant for 75-ball Bingo, which is largely played in the U.S. The other uses a 9x3 grid for U.K. style "Housie" or 90-ball Bingo. Players use cards that feature five columns of five squares each, with every square containing a number (except the middle square, which is designated a "FREE" space). The columns are labeled "B" (numbers 1–15), "I" (numbers 16–30), "N" (numbers 31–45), "G" (numbers 46–60), and "O" (numbers 61–75). A popular Bingo myth claims that U.S. Bingo innovator Edwin
Bingo (United Kingdom) the first modern version of the game appearing at carnivals and fairs in the 1920s, and is attributed to a Hugh J. Ward, who for marketing reasons most probably took the name from pre-existing slang. The patent for a modern Bingo card design went to Erwin S. Lowe in 1942. A typical bingo ticket is shown to the right. It contains 27 spaces, arranged in nine columns by three rows. Each row contains five numbers and four blank spaces. Each column contains up to three numbers, which are arranged as follows, with some variation depending on bingo companies and/or where