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Uno (card game)

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Uno (card game)
Language Shedding-type
Launch 2–10 players
End Hand management
Slogan 7+
Sister channel 108
Former name Varies

Uno (/ˈn/ Italian and Spanish for 'one'; stylized as UNO) is an American shedding-type card game that is played with a specially printed deck. The game's general principles put it into the Crazy Eights family of card games, and it is similar to the traditional European game Mau-Mau.

It has been a Mattel brand since 1992.

History[edit | edit source]

The game was originally developed in 1971 by Merle Robbins in Reading, Ohio, a suburb of Cicinnati. When his family and friends began to play more and more, he spent $8,000 to have 5,000 copies of the game made. He sold it from his barbershop at first, and local businesses began to sell it as well. Robbins later sold the rights to UNO to a group of friends headed by Robert Tezak, a funera; parlor owner in Joilet, Illnois, for $50,000 plus royalties of 10 cents per game. Tezak formed International Games, Inc., to market UNO, with offices behind hi funeral parlor. The games were produced by Lewis Saltzman of Saltzman Printers in Maywood Illnois.

In 1992, International Games became part of the Mattel family of companies.

Official rules[edit | edit source]

Uno cards
Uno cards
UNO cards deck

The aim of the game is to be first player to score 500 points, achieved (usually over several rounds of play) by being the first to play all of one's own cards and scoring points for the cards still held by the other players.

The deck consists of 108 cards: four each of "Wild" and "Wild Draw Four," and 25 each of four different colors (red, yellow, green, blue). Each color consists of one zero, two each of 1 through 9, and two each of "Skip," "Draw Two," and "Reverse." These last three types are known as "action cards."

To start a hand, seven cards are dealt to each player, and the top card of the remaining deck is flipped over and set aside to begin the discard pile is an action or Wild card (see below). On a player's turn, they must do one of the following:

  • play one card matching the discard in color, number, or symbol
  • play a Wild card, or a playable Wild Draw Four card (see restriction below)
  • draw the top card from the deck, then play it if possible

Cards are played by laying them face-up on top of the discard pile. Play proceeds clockwise around the table.

Action or Wild cards have the following effects

Card Effect when played from hand Effect as first discard
Skip Next player in sequence misses a turn Player to dealer's left misses a turn
Reverse Order of play switches directions (clockwise to counterclockwise, or vice versa) Dealer plays first; play proceeds counterclockwise
Draw Two (+2) Next player in sequence draws two cards and misses a turn Player to dealer's left draw two cards and misses a turn