Create Bingo Cards in Excel

Bingo Cards in Excel

It’s Friday, and things are slow at the office. To liven things up, you could create bingo cards in Excel, and organize a game during the lunch hour.
In this example, there are three cards, each with a set of random numbers. You’ll need one of those numbered ball popper machines though, or create a number selector in Excel.

bingo cards in excel

Make Lists of Random Numbers

To generate the random numbers, there are three sets of lists on the Numbers sheet. In each set, there are typed numbers 1-75, with the formula =RAND() in the adjacent column.

When you press the F9 key, the sheet recalculates, and those random numbers change.

Bingo01

Add Random Numbers On Cards

On the three bingo cards, an INDEX/MATCH formula pulls the numbers from the random number tables.You can read more about the INDEX and MATCH functions on my website.

For example, this formula is used in cell E2:

=INDEX(Numbers!$M$1:$M$15,MATCH(LARGE(
Numbers!$N$1:$N$15,ROW()-1),Numbers!$N$1:$N$15,0))

Bingo03

The same number might appear on all three cards, but each card uses a separate lookup table of random numbers. With all that randomness (is that a word?), the 3 cards should never be exactly the same.

Print the Bingo Cards in Excel

The cards are formatted to print three per sheet, on letter sized paper.
After you print each set of three cards, press the F9 key to generate a new set of numbered cards.

Download the Sample File

  1. You can download the zipped Bingo Card Excel file, from my web site. Enjoy your lunch hour, and if you create a random number selector, let me know.
  2. There is a new Bingo Cards With Pictures sample file for you to download. Go to the Excel Sample files page on my website. On that page, go to the Functions section, and look for FN0045 – Excel Bingo Card With Pictures
  3. [Update] This is a new Bingo Card Creator file that uses numbers 1 to 100. Go to the Excel Sample files page on my website, and in the Functions section, look for FN0068 – Bingo Card 1 to 100
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21 thoughts on “Create Bingo Cards in Excel”

  1. I am an American currently teaching English in Japan. I would like to use your Bingo Card Excel file to make vocabulary bingo game cards. I want to make cards that display the Japanese translations (using Japanese characters) of English vocabulary words.
    Is it possible to modify the random numbers tables to return words or phrases as opposed to numbers?

    1. Yes, create another sheet with numbers in column A. column B and C should be your words, English and Japanese. Then use the Random number rounded to a single digit to lookup using the VLOOKUP function the word that corresponds to that number. Switch between columns B and C to show English or Japanese words.

  2. Hi buddy, I found a good example looking for “mini bingo smart” in google… a blog called “excelminiapps” or something like this. Good luck

  3. This is exactly what I am looking for but I can’t figure out how to change the 3-card format. I want 4 cards on top of each other. How do I do that? Copy and paste did not work and I can’t figure out how to adjust the formuala for the additional card.

  4. Excellent! This is just what I was looking for to have a team building game in my call center!

  5. Excellent, but to complete your explanation It is possible to know how to make, in excel, call numbers and have a sheet with the numbers already out?

  6. Please show me how to create in a 3X9 card with only 15 numbers in a card and the numbers 1to 90 number base..Please
    The 1 to 75 number base is ok and is 5×5 with center empty. I like that.. Thanks

  7. Excellent! Thank you very much for your help!
    Because I want to print 240 cards for my wedding used, will the number repeat? Because I only wanted 20 people who can have the prize I prepared. Please can help me?
    Thanks!

  8. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! so very much. Just what I needed for our event. You saved the day!

  9. This is so helpful! Thanks! I’m a librarian and we want to do a Banned Books Week Bingo program and you just made me job a whole lot easier. Thanks again!

  10. Good Day,
    This is great. Can you help me, how to create a 4th bingo card? I want to minimize paper use.
    Thank you

  11. Thank you for sharing this. I am using this for a community party I am helping to plan. It was so much easier to use this and add pictures to it then trying to create it on my own. I appreciate you sharing this for everyone to use.

  12. This is a great idea! I have a question which might throw a monkey wrench in the works. I would like to use the bingo cards for a classroom activity. I am using a random number generator and have all my words in (so far, so good), but I also want to associate picture with each word, so I can play the game with kindergarten classes, but I am at a loss as to how to go about it! Any suggestions? Thanks for any advice you can give.

  13. We play Safety Bingo at work and I have used this for years to generate my cards. I had originally setup the sheet to print 4 to a page. I recently added 4 more cards to the sheet so I could print 8 cards to a page. But on my new cards I sometimes get duplicate numbers on the same cards. I thought I had adjusted all the formulas correctly. Any ideas on why I could get duplicate numbers on the same cards?

  14. Hi there,

    Thanks for this! I’m using this in my classroom. Is it possible to change the bingo from 1-75 to 1-100. My excell skills are not that great, I’ve tried to understand but no luck. This would be awesome if this would be possible.

    Big thanks!

    Filip

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