THE HOST'S FIELD GUIDE

A little preparation.
A very good game.

Use Bingo Gather for a relaxed, no-money game with family, classmates, or friends. Your complete PDF includes individual cards, rules, and a caller checklist.

Make your own bingo in three steps

1. Choose your content. Start with an original themed list, enter one phrase per line, or select classic American 1–75 numbers.
2. Choose your group. Create 1–100 different arrangements. More cards do not require more words, but a larger word pool adds variety.
3. Create the pack. Select Letter or A4, download the PDF, and print at actual size. The caller pages and rules follow the cards.

How many words do I need?

A 4 × 4 grid has no single center, so it cannot have a free center. Small word grids are custom games, not standard 75-ball bingo. At the minimum word count, every card contains the same items in a different arrangement. Add more items for different subsets.

American number bingo: the column rule

Number bingo always uses 5 × 5 cards: B contains 1–15, I 16–30, N 31–45, G 46–60, and O 61–75. Numbers do not repeat within a card. A free center replaces the middle N square when enabled. This generator does not make UK 90-ball tickets.

Host a round

1. Give each player one card and a pencil or reusable counters. Agree on a winning pattern before starting.
2. For the default game, complete any full horizontal, vertical, or corner-to-corner diagonal line. Count the free center as already marked.
3. Copy the entire caller list onto separate slips, one item per slip. Mix in a bowl and draw without replacement. For numbers, use all 75 values. The checklist is a record of calls, not a randomized calling order.
4. Read each item clearly and tick it on the checklist. Players mark matching squares.
5. When someone calls “Bingo!”, verify their marked line against your checklist. Celebrate all winners on the same call.

Choose a readable print layout

One card per sheet gives long phrases the most room. Two is a good everyday option. Four saves paper and works best with short words. Large type enforces one card per page and a minimum of 14 pt inside the grid. Standard card text fits down to 8 pt. If a phrase cannot fit safely, the app stops and explains what to change.

Low ink removes colored cell fills. Use Letter in the US and Canada, or A4 in the UK and Australia. Select the same paper size in the printer dialog and print at 100% / actual size. Screen preview shows one card; the PDF follows your selected page layout.

What does “unique” mean?

Each generated card is checked against every other card in the batch by its exact ordered cell contents. No two arrangements match. Cards may share many or all words, and several players can win together. Uniqueness does not imply equal winning probability or guarantee a single winner.

For word cards, the generator prioritizes less-used items to keep appearance counts close. Open “Check word frequency” to see exact counts, also printed in the caller checklist. Number cards sample each column independently and may have a wider frequency range.

Save, restore, or reshuffle

Open “Reproduce this pack” to save a JSON project. Open that file later and create the pack to recover the same cards. Keep the same word order, settings, and seed. Click “New seed” for another set. The generator version is bg-v1.

Your draft is stored in this browser when storage is available. Browser cleanup and private-browsing sessions may remove it, so save a project file for a durable copy. Cancel stops an in-progress PDF without downloading a partial file. Reset asks before replacing your draft. Cancelling a file chooser leaves it unchanged.

Content limits

Use up to 200 unique words or phrases, each at most 80 characters. One item per line; blank lines are ignored. Leading/trailing whitespace and duplicate capitalization are normalized. English and Western European letters are supported; emoji, CJK and other scripts are rejected clearly rather than silently printed as broken characters. Titles allow 60 characters. Imported projects must be version 1 and smaller than 128 KB.