Theme Tambola Tickets

Theme tambola is housie played on illustrated tickets, with five pictures and three numbers in each, and prize names that belong to your occasion. This page lists all 25 free theme tambola sets, from kitty parties and weddings to Diwali, Holi and Christmas, with the printable pack, an online game, a game-length table and a guide to choosing a theme.

Choose your theme

Every theme has its own page with a ready-made PDF pack, its own prizes and a live game. Pick the occasion you are planning for.

Kitty parties and ladies’ nights

Couples and anniversaries

Wedding functions

Birthdays

Festivals

Theme tambola tickets: what is in the printable pack

Pick a theme above, add your party name (for example “Mehta Family Diwali” or “Riya’s 40th”), choose how many tickets you need and download the PDF. The pack includes the tickets, a 1 to 90 caller sheet, a prize sheet with the pictures for each prize, and a rules page you can read out.

Play theme tambola online

Hosting a video call or a party where nobody has a printer? Create a live game below. Each guest opens your link, picks a name and gets their own picture ticket. Numbers are called and read aloud automatically, tickets mark themselves, and when a guest presses Bingo the host screen checks the prize instantly. For a big room, open the TV view so everyone can scan the QR code and watch the numbers. If you prefer standard tickets, the classic online tambola works the same way.

How picture tambola works

The calling is ordinary tambola: the host calls numbers from 1 to 90 in random order and players mark them. The difference is the ticket. Instead of three rows of numbers, each ticket has five picture sections with three numbers in each, so it still holds 15 numbers. Every set of six tickets uses each number from 1 to 90 exactly once. That means prizes spread around the room instead of one lucky table winning everything.

Because the numbers sit inside the pictures, the prizes can be about the theme. On the handbag ticket, finishing the lipstick section wins “Pout Perfect”. Lipstick plus perfume wins “Glam Queen”, and every number on the card wins “Bag Full of Surprises”. Guests remember what they are playing for, and the host has an easy story to tell between calls.

Themed prizes, explained

Each theme comes with five or six prizes, printed at the bottom of every ticket so nobody argues about the rules:

• A first five: the first player to mark any five numbers. It keeps early interest high.
• Single sections: complete one picture, such as the dhol on a Holi ticket or the cake on a birthday ticket.
• Pairs: complete two pictures that belong together, such as diyas plus lanterns (“Jagmag”) or coffee plus movie night (“Date Night”).
• Full house: every number on the ticket, named for the occasion: “Shubh Diwali”, “Perfect Jodi” or “Birthday Star”.

Before the first call, read the prize sheet aloud and place the gifts on a table where everyone can see them. A small tray of prizes makes a theme party feel planned even when the tickets took two minutes to print.

Ladke Wale vs Ladki Wale: a team game for weddings

The Ladke Wale vs Ladki Wale theme prints two designs. Odd ticket numbers are blue Ladke Wale tickets with the dulha, ghodi, baraat band, sehra and shagun. Even numbers are pink Ladki Wale tickets with the dulhan, mehendi, varmala, kaleere and joota chupai. Both designs have the same number counts and the same prizes, so the game stays fair.

Hand blue tickets to the groom’s side and pink tickets to the bride’s side, and the scoreboard counts every prize for the winning side by itself. In a live game guests pick their side when they join, and the host, every phone and the TV view show the score as it changes. Give a bonus to the winning family at the end. It works brilliantly at a sangeet, a mehendi night or the evening before the wedding.

Tips for hosting a theme tambola

• Match the dress code: ask guests to wear yellow for Haldi Hai or something sparkly for Kitty Queen, and award a style prize with the full house.
• Print one ticket per guest plus a few spares: people arrive late, and children always want to play.
• Use the caller sheet: cross numbers off as you call them, then check any claim against it before handing over a prize.
• Personalize the title: “Sharma Ji’s Diwali Dhamaka” on every ticket makes a lovely keepsake.
• Mix print and phones: download the PDF of a live game so older relatives can play on paper while everyone else follows on their phones.

Planning a full party? Pair these tickets with handbag bingo, kitty party tambola, wedding tambola or the Diwali tambola pack with classic tickets. To print regular numbered tickets in any quantity, use the tambola ticket generator.

Where the pictures come from

The illustrations are open-source Twemoji artwork, used under the CC BY 4.0 license. They are drawn as vectors, so tickets print crisply at any size and stay light enough to share on WhatsApp.

All 25 theme tambola sets at a glance

Every theme in this theme tambola collection has the same structure: five pictures with three numbers each, a first-five prize, prizes for single pictures and pairs, and a full house. This table lists each theme, the occasion it suits, its five pictures and the number of prizes (5 or 6):

Most themes have six prizes, and the two wedding-team and ritual themes differ slightly. Because the structure is shared, you can learn the game once and use any set: if you know how to run Diwali Dhamaka, you know how to run Birthday Bash. The pictures and prize names are what change, so a host who has run one theme tambola evening can run any other.

Theme tambola ticket layout: how a picture ticket is built

A theme tambola ticket replaces the three rows of a classic ticket with five picture sections, and each section holds three numbers. The five sections together carry 15 numbers, the same as an ordinary ticket, so the game is the same length. The picture below shows the layout on the Queens Handbag ticket:

Because the numbers sit inside pictures, a prize can be about the picture: finish the lipstick and you win Pout Perfect. That is the main difference between theme tambola and classic tambola, and it is why every theme page can have its own prize names.

How long does a theme tambola game last?

We simulated 3,000 games of theme tambola for each ticket count, with tickets built in sets of six that use 1 to 90 exactly once, and recorded the call on which each kind of prize is first won. The table shows the median call:

With 24 tickets the full house arrives around call 73, about 12.2 minutes at 10 seconds a call, and with 200 tickets around call 64. The first five takes only 9 to 16 calls whatever the size of the party. So a theme tambola game is a 10 to 13 minute activity in calling time, and the other prizes fall in between.

Plan 30 to 45 minutes for the whole round including prize announcements, and leave the biggest prize for last. Each theme page has a planner with its own guest numbers, so you can size your theme tambola game to your group.

How many different theme tambola tickets exist?

It is easy to wonder whether two guests could get the same ticket. We counted. A single picture section is a choice of 3 numbers from 90, which gives 117,480 possibilities. A whole ticket picks five such sections in order, without repeating a number, which gives 7,701,366,899,255,446,505,088,000 different tickets, about 7.7 septillion. A set of six tickets that shares out all 90 numbers can be built in more than 10 to the power of 114 ways, a number with 115 digits.

So every set of six that the maker prints is effectively unique, and no two parties will ever get the same theme tambola tickets by accident. Within a set of six, each number appears once, which is why prizes spread around a room rather than bunching on one table.

Which theme tambola set should you choose?

Pick the set by occasion first, then by group size. Smaller groups of 8 to 30 suit the kitty and couples themes, where everyone knows each other. Large gatherings of 40 to 150 suit the wedding and festival sets, which are written for a crowd and a host with a microphone.

• Kitty parties and ladies’ nights: the six ladies sets, from handbags to Bollywood, suit 10 to 40 guests and a three-hour kitty.
• Couples and anniversaries: Couple Goals and Mr and Mrs fit 8 to 40 guests.
• Weddings: the six wedding sets, from haldi to the baraat, fit 30 to 150 guests, and the Ladke Wale vs Ladki Wale set adds a team score.
• Birthdays: Birthday Bash suits children and mixed groups, and Fabulous Forty suits a milestone party.
• Festivals: nine sets, from Lohri in January to New Year in December, each with prizes in the festival’s own words.

Kitty party tambola: which theme fits a monthly kitty?

For kitty party tambola, rotate the six ladies sets month by month so the group never repeats a game: Queen’s Handbag in January, Kitty Queen in February and so on, with a festival set in the right month. Each set has its own run sheet and prize ideas on its page, and the classic kitty party tambola pack is there when you want plain number tickets.