Printable office bingo cards

Office bingo at a party or in a meeting

The page opens with the office party list loaded, 20 cards and 4x4 cards with no free space. Use Start from above the word box to switch to the meetings and calls list. Change the card count to your headcount, and edit the words before you print: if your party has no gift exchange, take out the four gift squares and add something your office really does, such as the annual bake-off or the team that always arrives last. Your edited list stays in this browser for next time.

Running it at a party

At a party the game has a caller. Give everyone one card and a pen as they arrive, press Caller sheet and print it for whoever is hosting. The caller reads squares off the sheet in its shuffled order, ticks each one, and players mark any square on their card. With 20 players on 4x4 cards and all 56 party words, our simulation of 4,000 games found the first line after a median of 15 calls (between 10 and 20 in eight games out of ten), so a round takes about ten minutes at a relaxed pace. For a second round on the same cards, play four corners, then a full card.

You can also play it as a spotting game with no caller: hand out the cards at the start and let people mark squares as they actually happen during the evening, such as the speech running long or the coffee urn running dry. Ask winners to say what they saw; it gets people talking to colleagues they do not usually sit near.

Running it in a meeting

In a meeting there is no caller. Send the PDF to everyone beforehand or print a card for each seat; people mark squares quietly as the phrases come up, and the first person with a full line says "bingo" in the chat at the end, not in the middle of someone's update. Agree the prize in advance and keep it small and non-money: first pick of the biscuits, choosing the next meeting's music, or skipping note-taking for a week. Never play for money, and do not run it in a meeting with a client, a candidate or anyone who has not been told.

An honest limit: one meeting will not produce most of the 56 phrases. A 45-minute call usually gives you a dozen at most, so use 3x3 cards for a single meeting, or keep a 4x4 card going through a whole week of meetings and stand-ups. The list pokes fun at habits everyone shares (being on mute, the frozen face, the slide too small to read); it names no software, no person and no group, and it is meant to be played with the people in the meeting, not about them.

Printing

Choose 2 per page for 5x5 cards so longer squares such as "Cake with the company logo" stay readable, and 4 per page for 3x3 and 4x4. Twenty cards on 4 per page is 5 sheets of paper; on 2 per page it is 10. Press Print cards with margins at Default and scale at 100%, or choose Download PDF to send the file to the office printer or attach it to the meeting invite. Players can also fill the PDF in on a phone with any markup tool, but for a party, paper and a pen are quicker.