How Bingo Cards Are Made: Perms, Series, Serial Numbers and Printing

A bingo card looks like the simplest thing in the hall. Behind it sits a surprisingly careful system: random number layouts, numbered series, serial-numbered packs and a master book that can prove any winning card is genuine. Here’s how it all works, from the first sets in the 1930s to today’s printing presses.

How were the first bingo cards made?

By hand, with a mathematician’s help. In December 1929, New York toy salesman Edwin S. Lowe saw a carnival game called “Beano” and began selling his own version as “Bingo.” Accounts differ on where he saw it: most say near Atlanta or Jacksonville, Georgia, while one early history says Kentucky.

Early sets were small. Lowe sold 12 cards for $1 or 24 cards for $2. Small sets meant lots of winners at once when bigger groups played, so, as the widely told story goes, Lowe hired Columbia University mathematics professor Carl Leffler to produce about 6,000 cards with different number combinations. A popular add-on claims the job drove Leffler insane; reference sources treat that part as a myth.

By 1934, an estimated 10,000 bingo games a week were being played, and Lowe’s company employed thousands of people to keep up. The details of Leffler’s method weren’t recorded, but the problem he faced is the same one manufacturers solve today: make many cards that don’t repeat.

What rules does every bingo card follow?

Every valid 75-ball card follows the B-I-N-G-O column ranges. State regulations spell this out. South Carolina’s definition is typical:

No number can appear twice on the same card, and South Carolina’s standards add that numbers printed on the card must be randomly assigned. More on the layout in our guide to how many numbers are on a bingo card.

How are modern bingo faces generated?

By computer, then grouped into numbered sets called permutations, or “perms.” Each unique layout is a face. Faces are numbered and grouped:

• Perm (permutation): a defined collection of unique faces. In a 9,000-face perm, faces are numbered 1–9,000; the next perm runs 9,001–18,000, and so on.
• Series: the number of unique faces in a set. A “9000 series” has 9,000 unique faces. Washington State’s rules note that series are usually identified by their first and last card numbers, such as “1 to 9000.”
• Perm number: the number printed on each face that identifies its layout. South Carolina asks that it appear at least in the center square and/or bottom-right corner.

The math leaves plenty of room. There are about 5.52 × 10^26 possible 75-ball cards, so a manufacturer can choose any 9,000 (or 90,000) without ever running short of unique layouts.

Why 9,000 faces?

It’s the industry-standard set size, set partly by printing equipment. A 1999 patent assigned to Arrow International, a major bingo paper maker, explains that bingo faces are printed from plates on a continuous belt. Modern belts hold about 9,000 unique faces, which the patent calls “the accepted industry standard set.” Larger games are built by combining several 9,000-face sets, a process called set collation. The same patent notes that big halls can use 9,000 or more faces in a single game, and linked sessions 120,000 or more.

How is bingo paper printed and packaged?

On high-speed web presses, then cut and glued into packs. Paper runs through the press as a continuous roll (the “web”). Different units print the bingo faces, borders and colors, serial and audit numbers, and other markings.

The finished paper is described by “on” and “up”:

• “On” is the number of faces per sheet. A “6-on” sheet holds six cards. The patent describes products from 1-on up to 36-on or more.
• “Up” is the number of sheets in a booklet, one per game in a session.

Different paper colors are commonly used so players and staff can tell which sheet belongs to which game.

Regulators add their own requirements. In South Carolina, for example:

• the manufacturer’s name or logo must appear on every sheet,
• each card must show the sheet’s face value, such as “3 on $1,”
• prepackaged paper generally shares one serial number per package,
• serial numbers must run consecutively and not repeat until all are used,
• booklets should be glued, not stapled, so sheets tear out cleanly, and
• distributors must sell complete 9,000-face sets to a single organization.

How do callers verify a winning card?

With the manufacturer’s verification book or database. Every permutation comes with a certified record showing the exact numbers on every face. South Carolina requires manufacturers to provide this “verification book, master control book or an electronic database,” and Kentucky’s rules describe a verification system that lists patterns by perm number.

When you shout “Bingo!”, a floor worker reads your face’s perm number. The caller looks it up, sees which numbers are on that face and checks them against the balls called. It’s quick, and it prevents anyone from altering a card. Our bingo rules and etiquette guide covers the claiming process.

Can two players have the same card?

Within a single series, no. Every face in a 9,000 series is unique. But the series itself is printed again and again, so the same face can show up in packs sold years apart, or in different sets sold the same night if a hall mixes them. That’s one reason many states require full sets to be sold together to one organization.

Randomly generated cards are different. With 552 septillion possibilities, two random cards matching is practically impossible.

How are electronic and online bingo cards made?

By software at the moment you buy them. Electronic bingo units in halls and online bingo apps generate card faces digitally, often from the same kind of permutation libraries as paper or from a random number generator. The device stores your faces and marks them automatically. Rules for electronic bingo vary by state; see our online bingo guide.

How do you make your own bingo cards?

Follow the column rules and use a random method. For a home game:

1. Write B-I-N-G-O across the top of a 5×5 grid.
2. Pick five random numbers from 1–15 for B, five from 16–30 for I, four from 31–45 for N, five from 46–60 for G and five from 61–75 for O.
3. Put “FREE” in the center square.
4. Make sure no two players get the same card.

The quickest way is our free bingo card generator, which produces valid random cards ready to print. For themed or word cards, browse our printable bingo cards.

Curious about the game’s full backstory? Read our history of bingo.