Halloween Bingo: A 24-Word Calling List and the Odds of Who Wins

Halloween Bingo: A 24-Word Calling List and the Odds of Who Wins

Halloween bingo is ordinary bingo played with 24 spooky words or pictures instead of numbers: each player gets a 5×5 card with a free centre, a caller draws words one at a time, and the first complete row, column or diagonal wins. With our 24-word list and 20 players, half of all games end by the 8th call and about 1 in 4 ends in a tie. Two SubhSandesh figures shaped this guide: in our festival data (Raksha Bandhan 2026, n = 89 pages, our nearest analogue), 49.4% of pages were built on the day itself, so the card method below takes minutes; and 48.3% of shared pages are opened on a phone, so the caller can run the list from one.

We cannot host printable cards, so below are the calling list, two ways to make unique cards, the maths and three variants.

What is Halloween bingo?

Halloween bingo is a themed version of bingo in which each square holds a Halloween word or picture, called in random order. With no numbers, a child who can match a picture can play alongside adults.

Standard American bingo uses 75 numbers, and the English Wikipedia article on the game puts the number of possible cards at 552,446,474,061,128,648,601,600,000. A themed game is far smaller. With a pool of exactly 24 words, every card holds every word, so cards differ only in layout: 24 factorial, or 620,448,401,733,239,439,360,000 arrangements.

A 24-word Halloween bingo calling list

Each word has a quick drawing cue, so the list also makes picture cards for pre-readers.

1. Pumpkin: a circle with a curly stalk
2. Ghost: a sheet with two dot eyes
3. Bat: a wide W with pointed ears
4. Black cat: arched back, tail high
5. Witch's hat: a tall cone on a brim
6. Broomstick: a stick ending in straw
7. Cauldron: a pot on three short legs
8. Spider: eight bent legs around a dot
9. Cobweb: spokes joined by sagging lines
10. Skeleton: a stick figure in bones
11. Full moon: a circle with crater dots
12. Owl: two huge eyes, tiny beak
13. Candle: a tube with a teardrop flame
14. Candy corn: a three-striped triangle
15. Haunted house: crooked roof, one lit window
16. Tombstone: a rounded slab marked RIP
17. Mummy: zigzag bandage lines
18. Vampire fangs: two pointed teeth
19. Scarecrow: a straw hat on a cross
20. Crow: a black bird on a fence post
21. Apple: one leaf, for apple bobbing
22. Potion bottle: a corked round flask
23. Treat bucket: a pail with a grin
24. Autumn leaf: five points and a stem

How to make unique Halloween bingo cards

Every card needs the 24 words in a different random order, with FREE in the centre. Shuffling does that for you: the chance that two of 30 shuffled cards come out identical is under 1 in 10^20.

The one mistake is making new cards by rotating or flipping an old one. A square has 8 such symmetries, and each maps every line onto another line, so a rotated twin wins on exactly the same call every game. That still leaves 77,556,050,216,654,929,920,000 layouts that behave differently.

By hand (about 4 minutes a card, our estimate):

1. Write the 24 words on slips and put them in a bowl.
2. Draw a 5×5 grid with FREE in the centre square.
3. Draw slips and fill the squares left to right, skipping the centre.
4. Return the slips and shake the bowl for the next card.

In a spreadsheet (about 30 seconds a card, our estimate):

1. Type the 24 words into cells A1 to A24.
2. Paste the formula for your software into an empty cell. It fills a 5×5 block with FREE in the middle.
3. Paste the block as values only onto your print sheet.
4. Recalculate for the next card: F9 in Excel, or any edit in Google Sheets.

• Excel 365: =LET(s,SORTBY(A1:A24,RANDARRAY(24)),WRAPROWS(VSTACK(CHOOSEROWS(s,SEQUENCE(12)),"FREE",CHOOSEROWS(s,SEQUENCE(12,1,13))),5))
• Google Sheets: =LET(s,SORT(A1:A24,RANDARRAY(24),TRUE),WRAPROWS(VSTACK(CHOOSEROWS(s,SEQUENCE(12)),"FREE",CHOOSEROWS(s,SEQUENCE(12,1,13))),5))

How many calls until someone shouts bingo?

Exact figures for line wins on a 5×5 card with a free centre and the 24-word pool:

• 1 card: half of games are won by call 14; a line is certain by call 20, because 5 well-placed gaps can block all 12 lines for 19 calls.
• 4 players: median call 11; 17% of games end in a tie.
• 12 players: median call 9; 23% end in a tie.
• 20 players: median call 8; 26% end in a tie.
• 30 players: median call 8; 28% end in a tie.

Because every card holds every word, after k calls each card has k marked squares in random places, independently of every other card. Counting, by inclusion and exclusion, the k-word sets that complete at least one of the 12 lines gives p(k), the chance one card has a line; with n players, the chance nobody has won is (1 − p(k))^n. 20,000 simulated twenty-player games averaged 8.31 calls; the exact figure is 8.32.

The fastest possible win is 4 calls, on a line through the free centre, which happens to any one card about once in 2,657 games. At an estimated 20 seconds per call, a 20-player game lasts under 3 minutes, so plan 8 to 10 rounds for half an hour and set the tie rule first: shared prize, or one extra draw between the tied players.

The same method compares four formats, assuming random cards:

A bigger word pool is the only lever that slows the game and cuts ties: adding 16 words of your own to reach 40 takes a 30-player game from a median of 8 calls to 12.

Three Halloween bingo variants

One rule covers all three: never play blackout (full card) with the 24-word pool on a 5×5 card, because every card fills on the 24th call and everyone ties.

Classroom picture bingo for pre-readers

Pick 12 of the easiest words, such as pumpkin, ghost, bat, full moon, spider, owl, apple and candle, and give each child a 3×3 card with a free centre and 8 of those 12 pictures. Print the word under each drawing, and have the caller hold up the picture while saying it.

Play to a full card, not a line. With 25 children, a 3×3 line game is usually over by the 2nd call, while a full card takes a median of 10 calls. Half of those games still tie, so give a sticker to every child who fills a card.

Large-print bingo for older players

Cut the grid to 4×4, with 16 of the 24 words and no free square, so each square on the same sheet is 25% wider and about 56% larger in area than on a 5×5 card. Use heavy type, no background pictures and large counters.

A clinical trial of Bingocize, reported in Innovation in Aging in 2022, randomised 143 adults aged 60 and over to bingo with or without exercise and health education, twice a week for 12 weeks. Attendance stayed above 90%, and every group, including bingo-only, reported better sleep, less pain and more energy. The Well!Bingo study in BMC Women's Health (2017) found that 29 women from a bingo club who wore accelerometers averaged 9.6 sedentary hours a day. So build in movement: when the caller draws "Bat", everyone flaps their arms, standing or seated.

Costume-spotting bingo on a trick-or-treat walk

No caller: each walker carries a 4×4 grid of sights and marks one on seeing it:

• A cardboard-box costume
• A dog dressed up
• A family in matching costumes
• Something that lights up
• A cape
• A dinosaur
• A homemade mask
• A lit jack-o'-lantern on a doorstep
• A house playing spooky music
• A costume with wings
• A crown or tiara
• A fog machine
• A costume nobody can name
• A sheet ghost
• A broom
• A grown-up in full costume

Borrow the rule from Non-Technical Skills Bingo (Advances in Simulation, 2016), where players spot examples of their squares in video clips and then defend each claim to the game leader: a walker points out each sighting to an adult before marking it. In a pediatric rheumatology training bingo (2025), residents ticked an average of 12 squares in a week and 31% made a line, so name a fallback winner: most squares by the walk's end. Mark only when stopped on the pavement, never while crossing.

When Halloween bingo is the wrong game, and SubhSandesh's limits

Bingo suits a group happy to sit and listen, not a party that wants to talk. For 2 or 3 players it drags: a lone card's median is 14 calls.

SubhSandesh is not a bingo tool: we cannot print cards, call words or keep score, and our Halloween pages greet one person, never a whole party. For the winner, or a grandparent who missed the game, our interactive Halloween card where they carve a jack-o'-lantern is about a 5-minute build with room for 6 photos. The premium Halloween page with your voice note of up to 60 seconds is about a 10-minute build with room for 12 photos, an optional unlock time and one reply. 38.5% of our creators set a password first. For a far-away friend who skips Halloween, a miss-you page with open-when letters is the better fit.

Halloween falls on Saturday 31 October 2026 and Sunday 31 October 2027.

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Bingo (American version)", standard 75-ball card count (undated).
• Bingocize clinical trial abstract, Innovation in Aging, 1 November 2022.
• Ryde et al., Well!Bingo study, BMC Women's Health, 28 July 2017 (abstract read).
• Dieckmann et al., Non-Technical Skills Bingo, Advances in Simulation, 22 July 2016 (abstract read).
• Gillispie-Taylor, pediatric rheumatology bingo, Perspectives on Medical Education, 30 September 2025 (abstract read).
• SubhSandesh first-party data, measured September 2026; game odds calculated by us, October 2026.