Bidding box for home-played games. Use of bidding boxes has several advantages over oral bidding: it reduces noise in the room, prevents bidding being overheard at neighboring tables, allows easier review of the auction, and reduces the opportunity to pass unauthorized information to one's partner (intentionally or not) by the manner and intonation in which one makes one's bid. A bidding box is typically a plastic box with two slots, each containing a set of bidding cards. One slot contains 35 cards with symbols of bids (5 denominations—clubs (), diamonds (), hearts (), spades (), and notrump (NT)—in seven levels of bidding,
Auction bridge "The Times" (London), January 16, 1905, signed by Oswald Crawford, describes auction bridge as first played in 1904, while a book by "John Doe" (F. Roe), published in Alláhábád, India, in 1889, puts forward auction bridge as an invention of three members of the Indian Civil Service stationed at an isolated community, designed a three-handed form of bridge to compensate the lack of a fourth player. Their key contribution was the concept of competitive bidding for the declaration. The bidding, play and laws are similar to contract bridge. The dealer opens the bidding and must declare to win at least