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How do you run year-end party bingo with just an iPhone?

Open Bingo in Random, tap 75, and tap Generate once per ball: the phone is the drum, no number can come out twice, and every called ball stays on a board for checking claims. Mirror the iPhone to the venue TV if the room is big; the app itself has no caller voice and no cards, so buy or print those.

4 min read · Updated 2026-09-15

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A 32-person year-end party can run with an iPhone propped against a beer jug and mirrored to a TV. The drum part is easy. What can go wrong is the screen: the phone can lock itself mid-game while a prize is being handed out, needing to be unlocked in front of everyone.

So the first thing to do is set Auto-Lock to "Never" in the iPhone's own Settings, under Display & Brightness, before the party starts. Random does not keep the screen awake for you.

Setting up the drum before people arrive

  1. Open Random and tap Bingo in the list on the Home tab.
  2. Tap the 75 chip next to Max numbers: (most party cards are B 1-15, I 16-30, N 31-45, G 46-60, O 61-75). Use 90 only if your cards are the 90-ball kind.
  3. Leave the screen open. The game is saved on the phone, so you can lock it, check messages, and come back to the same board.
  4. When the host says go, tap Generate and read the big number out loud. One tap per ball.

The ball fills a circle in the middle of the screen in very large type, and a counter under it reads like 12 / 75. Below that, every called ball sits in a grid of 8 per row, the newest one highlighted. That grid is what you look at when someone shouts bingo.

How many balls until someone wins?

This is the number that actually matters for planning, since it decides how many prizes to buy and how long to book the room for. Party cards usually have a FREE centre square, so the row, the column and the two diagonals through the centre need only 4 numbers. Here is the exact chance that one of those lines on one card is complete after a given number of balls from 75:

75-ball drum, one card, chance a given line is complete
Balls calledLine through FREE centre (4 numbers)Line without centre (5 numbers)Chance any one number is out
200.4%0.09%26.7%
302.25%0.826%40.0%
407.52%3.812%53.3%
5018.95%12.276%66.7%

With a room of 30 or more cards and 12 lines per card, the first bingo usually comes well before 30 balls, and after 40 balls claims start arriving in clusters. At one ball every 20 seconds, 40 balls takes 13 minutes 20 seconds. Planning 8 prizes for 32 people fits comfortably inside a 2-hour booking.

Checking a claim and fixing a double tap

When someone calls bingo, read their line back and find each number in the grid. The highlighted ball is the latest call, which settles the "before or after the call" fight.

If you tap Generate twice by accident, tap Undo: the last ball goes back into the drum and the counter drops by one.

To start a second game, tap Restart, then Yes on Reset?. It always restarts at 75, so tap 90 again if that is what you play. When the drum is empty the app shows All numbers drawn.

Showing it on the big screen

Random has no TV mode of its own. Use the iPhone's Screen Mirroring to an AirPlay TV or an adapter cable; the app turns sideways in landscape, which fits a TV better. In the free version the ad banner at the top mirrors too, and opening a second generator from the list can bring up a full-screen ad, so open Bingo first and stay in it.

What the app will not do at your party

  • It does not speak the numbers. Somebody reads them out.
  • It does not make, print or check cards. Buy a pad of 75-ball cards or print your own.
  • It keeps one game in progress, with no history of past games.
  • Ads show in the free version. The optional Remove Ads purchase removes them and changes nothing else; every generator is free either way.

This isn't the app if you want a caller that talks, or cards on every guest's phone. It is the app if you want a fair drum that one person can run from a phone in their pocket, and it kept working fine in a basement bar with no signal.

Questions and answers

How do you play bingo with a large group?
Give everyone a paper card, call one ball at a time from a 75-ball drum, and show the called numbers somewhere the whole room can see. In Random the called balls stay on a grid, so mirror the iPhone to a TV for a room of more than about 20 people.
How many prizes do you need for bingo at a party?
Plan one prize per game plus a few for second lines. For 30 to 40 people, 6 to 10 prizes over two or three games fills about an hour and a half. Decide what happens with two winners on the same ball before you start.
Is there an app for bingo that calls the numbers out loud?
Random does not; it shows the ball large on screen and someone reads it. It is the drum and the board of called numbers, not a voice caller.
Can the bingo app repeat a number?
No. Each ball is taken out of the drum when it is drawn, so 75 taps give you 1 to 75 exactly once each. Only Undo puts the last ball back.

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