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UNO

Overview​

Barber Merle Robbins, in 1971 developed the game UNO to play with his friends and family. With the encouragement of his family, he began to selling the cards in his Barbershop in Reading, Ohio. Robbins would later sell the rights for UNO to a group friends, headed by Robert Tezak, a funeral parlor owner in Joliet, Illinois. Tezak founded International Games Inc. to officially take UNO to the market. In 1992 Interantional Games became a subsidiary of Mattel.

Players​

2-10 players

Resources​

  • UNO Cards

Goal/Objective​

To be the first one to empty their hand of cards.

Setup​

Choose a dealer to shuffle the cards

Deal 7 cards to each player

Place the remaining cards face down in the center of the table. This is the draw pile.

Flip over the top card of the draw pile and place it face up to form the discard pile. If this card is an Action Card, ignore it and flip over the next card.

The player to the left the of the dealer goes first and play proceeds clockwise.

Game Mechanics​

On each players turn they are to match a card in their hand with the top card of the discard pile, either by number, color or word.

For example, if the card is a Green 7, you must play a Green card or any color 7. Or, you may play any Wild card or a Wild Draw 4 card. If you don't have anything that matches, you must pick a card from the DRAW pile. If you draw a card you can play, play it.

If you do not have a playable card or if you have played a card, the play moves to the next player.

Before playing your next to last card, you must say "UNO". If you don't say UNO and another player catches you with just one card before the next player begins their turn you must pick FOUR more cards from the DRAW pile.

If you are not caught before the next player either draws a card from the DRAW pile or draws a card from their hand to play, you do not have to draw the extra cards.

If no one is out of cards by the time the DRAW pile is depleted, reshuffle the DISCARD pile and continue play.

Once a player plays their last card, the hand is over. Points are tallied and you start over again.

Outcome​

The player to reach 500 points wins the game. The player receives points based on the cards left in their opponents hands.

Card Values are:

  • All number cards (0-9) - face value
  • Draw 2, Revers and Skip - 20 points
  • Wild Cards - 50 points