Rang Barse Holi Tambola Tickets

Rang barse holi tambola is the festival-of-colors housie: pichkari, gulal, dhol, thandai and gujiya fill the ticket, and six prizes from Holi Hai Five to the Rang Barse full house. This page has the free pack, an online game, a prize ladder, a planner for 15 to 80 guests and a run sheet for a Holi get-together.

Five splashes of color on every ticket

Holi afternoons are loud, wet and messy. The evening, once everyone has scrubbed off the gulal and changed into clean clothes, is when people finally sit down together. That is the moment this holi theme tambola was made for.

Each Rang Barse ticket has a wavy scalloped border, a “Happy Holi” medallion at the top, and fifteen numbers tucked inside five pictures:

• Pichkari, the water gun every child guards with their life.
• Gulal, the soft colored powder smeared on cheeks with “Holi hai!”
• Dhol, the big double-sided drum that sets the street dancing.
• Thandai, the chilled milk drink flavored with almonds, fennel and saffron.
• Gujiya, the crescent-shaped sweet stuffed with khoya (reduced milk) and dry fruit.

Three numbers live in each picture. Six tickets together cover 1 to 90 with no repeats, so a printed set of six or twelve shares the luck evenly around the circle.

Ready-to-print Rang Barse Holi Tambola pack

12 different picture tickets (2 on each A4 page) with a caller sheet, a prize sheet and a rules page. Print it as it is, or press Create your tambola ticket above for more tickets and your own party name.

Download the free PDF

Prizes with a Holi flavor

Instead of corners and lines, players race to complete pictures. Some prizes need one picture, some need two, and a couple of them overlap, which keeps everyone watching their ticket until the very end.

• Holi Hai Five: any five numbers struck, anywhere. The quickest prize of the night.
• Rangon Ki Masti: the Pichkari and Gulal pictures both finished. The name means “fun with colors”.
• Dhol Baje: all three Dhol numbers. “The drum is playing”, so the winner gets a round of applause in dhol rhythm.
• Holi Ki Mithaas: Thandai plus Gujiya, the “sweetness of Holi”.
• Bura Na Mano: Gulal plus Dhol. It comes from the festival line “bura na mano, Holi hai”, meaning “don’t take offense, it’s Holi”.
• Rang Barse Full House: every single number on the ticket, all fifteen.

Notice that Gulal counts towards two prizes. A player who finishes Gulal early has two chances in play, which adds a little drama.

Planning the post-color get-together

When to play

Most families play colors in the morning and rest after lunch. Start tambola in the late afternoon or early evening, around chai time, when energy returns but nobody wants to go back outside. If your society holds a Holika Dahan bonfire the night before, a short round after the bonfire also works.

What to wear

White kurtas are the classic Holi look, but they rarely survive the day. For the evening game, suggest pastel or a single bright color per family, so each table becomes its own “color team”. It looks cheerful in photos and helps the caller spot who just shouted.

Prize ideas that fit

• A small pichkari or water balloon pack for Rangon Ki Masti.
• Herbal gulal in eco-friendly packets for Bura Na Mano.
• A box of gujiya or a thandai masala jar for Holi Ki Mithaas.
• A mini toy dhol or a fun playlist card for Dhol Baje.
• A hamper of sweets, namkeen and a scented candle for the Full House.

Seating and safety

Lay old bedsheets on the floor or terrace so stray color does not matter. Keep tickets and markers in a dry spot away from the water buckets, and give each player a crayon rather than a pen if hands are still damp.

Curious about the drink on your ticket? The Wikipedia page on thandai lists its traditional spices, and the main Holi article covers the festival’s legends and regional customs.

Play Rang Barse online

Cousins in another city can join the same game. Create a room and send the link; each cousin then plays from a phone. As the colors fly, the game calls numbers on a timer and can read them aloud, ticks off every ticket automatically, and passes Bingo claims to the host screen for checking. A QR code on the TV view lets latecomers scan and join.

A colorful twist: the gulal penalty

Here is a playful rule for grown-up groups. Anyone who shouts a false claim gets a tiny dab of dry gulal on the cheek from the caller. It keeps claims honest and the laughter going. Skip it if anyone has sensitive skin.

For printing, color shows the bright pinks and greens best. Choose black and white if children will color their own tickets before the game, which is a nice quiet activity while the adults clean up. Two tickets per A4 page is easy to read; four per page is thriftier for big groups.

Looking for regular number tickets instead? See our Holi tambola tickets and party games. The theme tambola hub holds all the picture designs, including Diwali Dhamaka tambola for the autumn festival and Couple Goals tambola for anniversaries.

Holi theme tambola: why this theme works

Holi marks the arrival of spring with colored powder, water play, music and sweets, and the night before is traditionally marked with a bonfire. A tambola game is a calm part of a very loud festival: it gives children and elders something to do while the colors dry or before the colors start.

The five pictures are the Holi essentials: a pichkari (water gun), gulal (colored powder), a dhol, thandai (a milky drink) and gujiya (a sweet dumpling). The prizes, including Bura Na Mano (“don’t mind it”), echo the festival’s spirit of joking and forgiving.

Here is how holi theme tambola fits a Holi gathering: the pictures need no explanation, the prizes give the host lines to announce, and the whole game fits comfortably around the other events of the day.

How to play rang barse holi tambola step by step

The rules of rang barse holi tambola are the rules of ordinary tambola, with pictures instead of rows. Here is the whole game in six steps, using the prize names printed on the sheet:

1. Hand out the tickets. Give each player one ticket and read the prize list aloud, starting with Holi Hai Five and ending with Rang Barse Full House.
2. Call the numbers. The host calls numbers from 1 to 90 in random order, or lets the online game call them.
3. Mark your pictures. Each player strikes off the numbers on their ticket, and each picture holds three of them.
4. Claim a prize. The first player to complete a pattern shouts the prize name, such as “Rangon Ki Masti!”, before the next number is called.
5. Check the claim. The host reads the numbers back against the caller sheet. A wrong claim loses that ticket the prize.
6. Finish with the full house. The game ends when a player marks all fifteen numbers and wins Rang Barse Full House.

New players learn rang barse holi tambola in about two minutes, because the pictures show them what to look for. If the group has never played tambola, our guide on how to play tambola explains the classic version.

Rang barse holi tambola: the prize ladder in numbers

Every prize in rang barse holi tambola needs a different number of marked numbers, so the prizes arrive in a predictable order. We simulated 3,000 games with 48 tickets, which is 8 sets of six, and recorded the call on which each prize was first completed. The table shows the median, with the middle half of games alongside:

With 48 tickets the first five arrives on about call 11, and the full house on about call 70, so the whole ladder runs over 59 calls, or about 10 minutes at 10 seconds a call. A one-picture prize arrives around call 23, and a two-picture prize around call 46, so most of the excitement happens in the middle of the game. When you plan rang barse holi tambola, announce the prizes in the order they are likely to be won, and keep the biggest for last.

Holi tambola tickets: how many to print and how long a game lasts

This planner answers the question behind holi tambola tickets: how many to print and how long the game lasts. For a Holi gathering, the right number of tickets depends on how many guests want to play. This planner rounds up to whole sets of six and uses the same simulation as above for each size of group. One ticket for each player is the usual choice, and you can print a few spares for latecomers:

For 15 guests, print 18 tickets (3 sets of six) and expect the full house around call 74, which is about 12.3 minutes of calling. For 80 guests you need 90 tickets and the full house arrives around call 68.

The bigger the group, the earlier each prize is won, because more tickets are in play: the first five comes on call 13 with 15 guests but on call 10 with 80. That is why rang barse holi tambola stays quick even at a large Holi gathering, and why it suits a short slot in the program.

What one ticket looks like during rang barse holi tambola

A ticket holds 15 of the 90 numbers, which is one sixth of them, so on average it has one sixth of the numbers called so far marked. By call 30 a typical ticket has 5 of its 15 numbers marked:

That is the average ticket, though. With 48 tickets in play, the best ticket reaches five marked numbers on call 11, and the best ticket completes all fifteen on call 70, long before an average ticket does. This gap between the average and the best ticket explains why the prizes in rang barse holi tambola are won so much earlier than the table above suggests.

A ready-made run sheet for rang barse holi tambola

Here is a run sheet for rang barse holi tambola that fits 90 minutes. The times are suggestions; stretch the snack break or shorten a round to suit your Holi gathering.

The tambola rounds take 40 of the 90 minutes, which leaves room for food, photos and conversation. If you only have half the time, play one round and keep rang barse holi tambola for the full house, since the biggest prize makes the best ending.

Prize ideas for rang barse holi tambola: a gift for every pattern

Match the gift to the pattern: small gifts for the quick prizes and the best gift for the full house. These ideas fit a Holi gathering:

Decor and dress ideas to go with the prizes:

• White sheets for the play area
• Bowls of dry gulal on the tables
• Dhol beats on the speaker
• Pichkaris in a bucket for the games

Keep the prizes simple, wrap them in the theme colors and put them on a table where everyone can see them before the first call. A prize table in view keeps interest high all through rang barse holi tambola.

Holi housie game: three twists to try

Here is how holi housie game can be varied. A small twist makes the game feel planned. Pick one, or use all three across the rounds of rang barse holi tambola, and rang barse holi tambola stays quick whichever you choose.

Dry tambola

Play the first round before colors begin so the tickets stay clean.

Color the winner

The winner of Rang Barse gets a gentle tilak of gulal from everyone.

Bura Na Mano round

Winners of Bura Na Mano may tease the host with a mild joke, as is the Holi custom.

If you like rang barse holi tambola, you may also enjoy Diwali Dhamaka Tambola, Teej Ki Bahaar Tambola, Karwa Chauth Chand Tambola, or browse the whole theme tambola collection.