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Official UNO rules: Have you been playing this card game wrong your entire life?

Clare Mulroy Veronica Bravo
USA TODAY

Want to inspire a little friendly competition this holiday season? Try pulling out a deck of UNO cards. The red, blue, green and yellow cards are a family favorite – Mattel sells 17 decks of UNO every minute, according to 2021 data. 

But like many card games, UNO has evolved and rules have changed from household to household. Maybe you grew up in a family that keeps drawing cards until you have a playable one. Maybe you and your friends don’t keep score. 

If you grew up playing UNO with your family, the official rules of the game may surprise you.

How to play UNO

The object of the game is to play all the cards in your hand before the other players do. The player who runs out of cards first wins the round, and the first player to 500 points wins the game.

How many cards do you get in UNO?

Determine the starting player, either by drawing cards to see who gets the highest point value or by having the player to the left of the dealer start. After shuffling the deck, deal each player seven cards. 

The remaining cards go in the middle, facedown to form the draw pile. Flip over the first card — this will be the starting color and number.

Official UNO rules allow two different start options with Wild cards, so you'll have to decide beforehand which one you'll allow. If the top card is a Wild card, the starting player can either use it to choose the first color or players can agree to move it to the bottom of the pile and flip the next top card.

Learn the special cards

UNO is not like a regular deck of cards — rather than suits and ranks, there are numbers zero through nine in red, yellow, green and blue in a standard pack. There are also a few specialty cards to learn before you begin:

Play

The first player makes their move based on the face-up card from the draw pile. You may choose one card of the same color or number, whatever is in your hand. Playing only one card at a time, put the card in the discard pile.

You can also play any special card, even if you have a playable number or color in your hand. 

If you can’t go, draw a card from the draw pile. If you can play that card, do so. If you can’t, the turn passes to the next person.

If you have a playable card but do not wish to use it, you may draw a card from the draw pile instead. You can play that card if it works, but you cannot play another card from your hand after drawing. 

The game should move to the left to start but may change several times as reverse cards play. Players continue matching cards by number or color, playing special cards and drawing.

If you are the victim of a draw card, you must draw your cards and skip your turn. This contested rule even prompted the official UNO Twitter account to dispel rumors.

If at any point during the game, the draw pile is depleted, shuffle the discard pile and place all but the top card facedown to create a new draw pile. 

Calling UNO

Players call “UNO” by saying the word aloud to signal they have one card remaining. You must say UNO before you put your second-to-last card in the draw pile. If you don’t, and another player calls you out for not saying UNO, you must draw four cards.

If you catch yourself and say UNO after putting down your other card but before the other players realize, you do not have to draw any cards.

You cannot call out a player for failure to call UNO after their turn has ended and the next player has begun their turn.

Going out

The game is over when a player has played their UNO card or final card. According to the official UNO rules from Mattel, if the last card played is a draw card or Wild draw card, the next player must draw however many cards it dictates. These cards will get added up in their final score.

Scoring

The first player to get out wins points by adding up the cards left in the other players’ hands. The first player to reach 500 points wins. 

Alternatively, you could score the game by adding up the points in your individual hand when the game ends and wait until one player reaches 500, at which point the player with the lowest score would win.

UNO point system:

What are blank cards for in UNO?

Blank cards serve two purposes. The first is for security — if you lose a red five, remedy the situation by drawing it onto a blank card. 

You can also use blank cards to create special house rules for your game to make it more challenging. Try these fun blank card ideas:

  • Pick a number: The player who plays this card chooses a number and the next player has to either play that player or draw from the deck until they find one
  • Draw 6: Ready to take a risk? Add additional draws to your deck. 
  • Reveal: Whoever draws this card may pick a player to reveal their hand to them in secret. 
  • Wildcard discard: Play this card and all other players (except you) must discard the wild cards from their hand. 
  • Swap hands: Play this card and choose a player to swap hands with for the remainder of the game. 
  • Power draw: All players must draw two cards other than the person who played the card. 
  • King card: Play this card and choose a player to remove from the round entirely. If there are only two players, you’d win this round.  
  • Color freeze: Choose a color that can only be played until your next turn. This prohibits wild cards or matching based on numbers alone until your turn.

How do you play UNO with normal cards?

No UNO deck? Not to worry, you can still play the game by making these substitutes:

  • Colors become suits
  • Numbers (0-9) become ranks (2-10)
  • Reverse and skip is Jack, where players can choose which action to take when playing this card
  • Draw 2 is Queen
  • Wild is King
  • Wild Draw 4 is Ace 

Keep the fun going with more illustrated game guides

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