1-75 number bingo cards

How 75-ball bingo works

A 75-ball card is a 5x5 grid under the letters B, I, N, G and O. Each letter owns a block of fifteen numbers: B is 1-15, I is 16-30, N is 31-45, G is 46-60 and O is 61-75. Every column holds five different numbers from its own block in no particular order, except N, which has four numbers and the free space in the centre. So a card always carries 24 numbers (25 if you switch the free centre off), and when the caller says "G-52" players only need to look down one column.

The cards on this page follow those rules exactly. "Unique" means no two cards in a set have the same five columns of numbers, so there is never a duplicate winner from a copied card. There are about 110 million billion possible cards, so you will never run out; the page makes up to 200 at a time. The set number under each card rebuilds the same cards later if you lose one.

Calling with the caller board

Press Caller board (or Download PDF, where it follows the cards). The first page is a board with B to O down the side and the 15 numbers of each letter across. The next page is all 75 numbers in a shuffled order, each with a tick box. Read the call order from the top: say the letter and number ("N, thirty-eight"), tick it on the order sheet, then cross it off on the board. When someone calls bingo, ask them to read their numbers back and check each one against the board; a crossed-off number on the board means it was called. Tip: give each round a fresh copy of the board, or cross off in a different colour per round.

Patterns to play, and how long they take

Line: any full row, column or diagonal (12 possible lines; the free centre counts for the middle row, the N column and both diagonals). Four corners: the four corner squares only. Blackout (also called coverall): every number on the card. We ran 2,000 simulated games per setting with cards from this page. With 10 players the first line came after a median of 26 calls, four corners after 41 and blackout after 69 of the 75 numbers. With 30 players those drop to 21, 32 and 66. Calling one number every 15 seconds, a line game for a room of 30 lasts about five minutes and a blackout about sixteen, so a typical evening is two or three line games, a four corners round, then a blackout to finish.

Large print for seniors and low vision

For numbers 1.65 times bigger and thicker grid lines, use the large print bingo cards page. Here, choose 1 per page. On Letter or A4 paper each square is then about 3.9 cm wide and the PDF prints numbers in 40-point bold, roughly 1 cm tall, which most people can read at arm's length without glasses. Two per page (landscape) still gives squares about 2.5 cm wide with 30-point numbers, which suits most groups and uses half the paper. Four per page makes squares about 1.8 cm wide: fine for children with dabbers, too small for weak eyesight. Use dark bingo dabbers or coins as markers rather than pencil ticks, call slowly, and repeat each number twice. For a care home or club, print the caller board on its own and stand it where players can see it, so anyone who missed a call can catch up.

Smaller range for young children

Seventy-five numbers is a lot for children who are still learning to read numerals. For a class game use number bingo for any range: 1 to 20 on a 4x4 card, or skip counting by 2, 5 or 10, with the same caller sheet and on-screen caller.

Printing

Press Print cards, set margins to Default and scale to 100%, or press Download PDF for one file with the cards, then the caller board, then the call order. The B-I-N-G-O header is printed as a dark band with white letters, which stays readable in greyscale. Prizes are up to you; this page makes cards for fun games in classrooms, clubs and family evenings, and has nothing to do with paid bingo.