Where the nicknames come from, and their meanings
Almost every call belongs to one of five families, and once you know them you can guess a call you have never heard before. Rhymes are the largest group, 37 of the 90: the call rhymes with the last digit, so 23 is "thee and me" and 79 is "one more time". Shapes describe what the figures look like, which gives you the two little ducks of 22, the legs of 11 and the two fat ladies of 88. Stories borrow from somewhere in British life: a song, a film, a radio series or an old price. Places are rare but memorable, like Downing Street for 10 and Torquay in Devon for 87. And a few numbers, mostly the multiples of twelve, are simply called straight, as "three dozen" or "six dozen".
The meanings of the story calls tell you when they were made. Many date from the Second World War, when housey-housey was a standard pastime in the forces: doctor's orders for 9 was an army joke about a laxative pill, and dirty Gertie for 30 comes from a wartime song. A second layer came from the music hall and variety, with names like Harry Tate and Danny La Rue. A third came from film and television in the 1950s and 1960s, which is where PC 49, Sunset Strip and the thirty-nine steps belong. Only a few calls are newer than the 1970s; dancing queen for 17 and staying alive for 85 are two of them.
Because most of these nicknames were passed on by word of mouth, the true origin is often uncertain. We mark a call as documented where the source can be pinned down, for instance a song or a programme with a known date, and as disputed where the competing explanations are all plausible, as with Kelly's eye for 1. The rest are traditional: universally used, with an origin that is believed rather than proved.
Why bingo calling numbers have nicknames at all
The nicknames started as a practical tool. In a large hall, or a mess room full of servicemen, it is easy to mishear a number. Fifteen and fifty, thirteen and thirty, sixteen and sixty all sound alike across a noisy room. A nickname gives the ear a second chance: nobody confuses "legs eleven" with "seven". That is why a good caller still gives the nickname and then the number, "two little ducks, twenty-two", rather than the nickname alone. The meanings behind the bingo calling numbers are the fun part; hearing the number clearly is the point.
They also slow the game down to a steady, readable rhythm, and they give the hall something to join in with. Several calls have a response. The hall wolf-whistles at 11, quacks at 22 and answers "every penny" to "was she worth it?". These are the moments that make live bingo feel like an event rather than a draw, and they are the reason many players who have moved online still turn on the calls in the chat.
Funny bingo calls
The funny bingo calls are usually either the shape jokes or the ones with a punchline built in. A short selection of favourites, all from the list above:
Gandhi's Breakfast
A visual pun: the 8 is a man sitting cross-legged and the 0 is his empty plate, a joke on Gandhi's hunger strikes.
Pick and Mix
Two shillings and sixpence (half a crown) was the old price of bed and breakfast, which is why all three names sit on the same number.
Droopy Drawers
The two 4s hang like a sagging pair of drawers.
Shotts Bus
The 56 was the bus to Shotts in Lanarkshire. 'Was she worth it?' refers to the old five shillings and sixpence cost of a marriage licence, and the hall shouts back 'every penny'.
Doctor's Orders
Number 9 was the name of a laxative pill issued by army doctors in the Second World War. Soldiers took the joke home with them.
Anyway Up
The number reads the same upside down. The calls are deliberately coy about the other reason it gets a laugh.
Halls and holiday camps have always added their own, and a caller with a local joke for a number is part of the entertainment. If you are hosting a game at home, feel free to do the same; the funny bingo calls that last are the ones that everyone in the room understands without an explanation.
The rude ones
Bingo has always had a bawdy side, especially in working men's clubs and late-night sessions. Two numbers in particular carry calls that you will hear in some clubs and never on an operator's official list: 34, whose rhyming alternative is not repeatable here, and 69, where the polite call "anyway up" is a coy nod to the other reason the number gets a laugh. Beyond those, a lot of rude bingo calls are simply the ordinary calls with an extra line shouted back from the floor.
We record the two in the dataset for completeness but do not print them as calls. If you are running a family game, the main calls listed above are all safe to use.
How a caller actually calls
A traditional UK caller works to a pattern. The ball is drawn and shown, the caller gives the nickname, then the two digits separately, then the number as a whole: "legs eleven, one and one, eleven". Some halls shorten this to the nickname and the number. The pace is steady, fast enough to keep the game moving but slow enough for someone playing six tickets to keep up, and a good caller notices when the room is struggling and slows down.
Callers also have a few fixed phrases around the numbers. "Eyes down" starts the game. "On its own" or "blind" introduces a number with a zero, so 30 might be "blind thirty". "Top of the shop" is 90, the last on the board. When someone claims, the caller says "we have a call" or "check", and the game pauses while the ticket is read back. If you want to try calling yourself, our free bingo caller draws the numbers and shows the nickname for each one, and you can switch the nickname off once you know them.
Bingo calls in online rooms and modern halls
Online rooms draw the numbers electronically and mark tickets automatically, so the calls are no longer needed to prevent mistakes. Many rooms still show them, or have a chat host who uses them, because players like them. Large modern halls with electronic boards and handheld terminals have gone the same way: the nicknames have become decoration rather than a safeguard, and some callers use only a handful of favourites.
Every so often a holiday company or bingo brand publishes a list of "modern" bingo calls, with celebrities and phones in place of music-hall comedians. Very few of these catch on. The calls in this list survive because they were used for decades by thousands of callers, and new ones only join them in the same slow way.
How to learn the calls
Nobody learns all 90 at once, and you do not need to. Start with the shapes, which you can work out from the figures: 11, 22, 44, 55, 66, 88. Then learn the doubles, "all the threes", "all the fives" and so on. The rhymes take care of themselves once you notice that they only rhyme with the last digit. The trainer at the top of this page asks you random numbers from the full set of calls 1-90; ten minutes a day for a week is enough to know most of them. To keep them fresh after that, Eyes Down, our daily bingo quiz, deals sixteen calls a day to sort into groups. For words you might hear around the numbers, such as "house", "sleeper" or "on one", see our glossary of bingo terms.