How Many Numbers Are on a Bingo Card? 75-Ball, 90-Ball, 80-Ball and 30-Ball Compared

The short answer depends on which bingo you’re playing. In the US, it’s almost always 75-ball bingo, where a card holds 24 numbers. In the UK, 90-ball tickets hold 15. Here’s the full breakdown, including the column rules that every valid card follows.

How many numbers are on a standard US bingo card?

24 numbers plus one free space, for 25 squares in total. The card is a 5×5 grid with the letters B-I-N-G-O across the top. The center square is a free space, which counts as marked from the start.

Each column draws only from its own range of 15 numbers:

No number appears twice on a card, and a number can only appear in its own column. That’s why the caller says “B-7” or “G-52”: the letter tells you exactly which column to check. Learn the full game in our 75-ball bingo guide.

Why does the N column have only four numbers?

Because the middle square of the N column is the free space. It sits at the exact center of the grid, so it’s part of the middle row, the N column and both diagonals.

That makes those four lines easier to complete: each needs only four numbers instead of five. It’s one reason the letter X pattern needs just 8 numbers, not 9.

How much of the number pool does one card cover?

About a third. A 75-ball card shows 24 of the 75 numbers, or 32%. Each column shows 5 of its 15 numbers (one third), and the N column shows 4 of 15.

In practice, that means roughly one call in three lands on any given card. Over a 30-call game, a card typically gets about nine or ten numbers marked.

How many numbers are on other types of bingo cards?

90-ball tickets

A UK-style 90-ball ticket has three rows and nine columns, for 27 spaces. Each row has five numbers and four blanks, so a ticket holds 15 numbers. Columns cover tens: roughly 1–9 in the first column, 10–19 in the second and so on up to 80–90.

Tickets are usually sold in strips of six, and a full strip contains every number from 1 to 90 exactly once. Hold a full strip and every call marks something. Players win in stages: one line, two lines, then a full house (all 15 numbers).

80-ball and 30-ball cards

These are mostly online formats. An 80-ball card is a 4×4 grid of 16 numbers, and 30-ball “speed bingo” uses a 3×3 grid of 9 numbers, so games finish very quickly. See our guides to 80-ball bingo and 30-ball bingo.

How many different 75-ball bingo cards are there?

About 552 septillion. We calculated the exact number by multiplying the ways to fill each column:

• B, I, G and O: choose and order 5 of 15 numbers = 15 × 14 × 13 × 12 × 11 = 360,360 ways each
• N: choose and order 4 of 15 numbers = 15 × 14 × 13 × 12 = 32,760 ways

360,360⁴ × 32,760 = 552,446,474,061,128,648,601,600,000, or about 5.52 × 10^26 distinct cards.

If you only care which numbers are on a card and not where they sit, as in a blackout game, the count drops to about 111 quadrillion (1.11 × 10^17) different number sets. Either way, two randomly generated cards matching is practically impossible.

Hall paper is different: it’s printed from fixed series of unique faces, so the same faces are reused across many packs. Our guide to how bingo cards are made explains how that works.

How many numbers do you need to win?

It depends on the pattern. Because of the free space, the fewest numbers that can win a game is four, for a line through the center. Common patterns need:

A neat fact from our calculations: the most numbers you can mark on a 75-ball card without completing any line is 19. Once you have 20 marked, at least one row, column or diagonal is guaranteed to be complete.

How many calls those patterns usually take is covered in our bingo odds guide.

Can you make your own bingo cards?

Yes, as long as you follow the column rules. Put five numbers from 1–15 under B, five from 16–30 under I, four from 31–45 under N with a free space in the middle, five from 46–60 under G and five from 61–75 under O, with no repeats.

The easiest way is our free bingo card generator, which builds valid random cards you can print. For themed and word-based cards, browse our printable bingo cards.