The rulebook
How to play UNO
Match colors and numbers, dump your hand first, and don't get caught holding one card without calling it.
Step 1
Deal
Everyone gets 7 cards, dealt face-down. Flip the next card off the deck to start the discard pile — that's the card everyone plays against. On your turn, your card has to match its color, its number, or its symbol.
Step 2
Your turn
Play a card that matches the discard pile's color, number, or symbol — or a Wild, which always plays and lets you name the next color. Can't go? Draw.By default you keep drawing one card at a time until you can play — and a turn ends only when you play a card. A house-rule option switches to drawing a single card that you may then keep, ending your turn.
Step 3
Action cards
Skiptakes the next seat's turn away entirely. Reverseflips the direction of play — heads-up (just two of you), it does the same thing a Skip does, since flipping direction just hands the turn right back across the table. Draw Two and Wild Draw Fourmake the next seat draw that many cards and lose their turn; Wild Draw Four also lets you name the color. Chaining a Draw Two onto a Draw Two (or a Wild Draw Four onto another) is an off-by-default house rule — stacking — a host can switch on when setting up the game.
Step 4
Call it
The moment you play down to one card, call UNO! Forget, and any other seat can tap Catchbefore the table moves on — you draw 2 cards as the penalty. This table plays with the call and the catch on; a host can turn it off for a quieter game where nobody has to holler anything.
Step 5
Winning
Play your last card and the hand's over on the spot — with one house catch: by this table's default your last card can't be a Wild or Wild +4. Stuck holding only a wild, you draw instead and go out on a later turn (a host can allow the official wild finish when dealing). By default a game is a single hand— whoever goes out wins the whole game, no scoring beyond that. Set up the game differently and you can instead play to first-to-N hands won, or by scorepad — classic points(the hand's winner collects everyone else's leftover card points, race to 500, highest total wins) or penalty points(everyone's own leftover cards count against them every hand, lowest total wins). All three variants are picked when a host sets up the table on the new-game screen.
Step 6
Card values
Only relevant once a hand ends — whatever's left in everyone's hand is what classic points and penalty points score against. Number cards count face value; every action card is a flat 20; either wild is 50.
| Card | Points | |
|---|---|---|
7 | Number card (0–9) | Face value |
⊘ | Skip | 20 |
⇄ | Reverse | 20 |
+2 | Draw Two | 20 |
Wild | Wild | 50 |
+4 | Wild Draw Four | 50 |
How this maps to the ledger
Every hand you finish is logged the instant it's scored — who went out, who was still holding what, and how it moved the running totals. The live table handles the deal, the draws, and the turn order for you; all you do is play.
Start a table