The Rules of Uno

Uno is probably the most-played card game with the wrong rules. Not out of bad faith : house rules get passed down from family to family and eventually start to feel official. Here's what Mattel's actual rulebook says, and where it differs from how you're probably playing.

The 108 Cards

The game is played by two to ten players. The deck contains 108 cards, broken down as follows :

Cards	Detail	Total
Number cards	Per color : a single 0, then two copies of each number from 1 to 9 — 19 cards per color	76
Skip	2 per color	8
Reverse	2 per color	8
Draw Two	2 per color	8
Wild (color change)	No color	4
Wild Draw Four	No color	4

The four colors are red, blue, green, and yellow.

Setup

Each player is dealt 7 cards. The rest of the deck becomes the draw pile ; the top card is flipped over to start the discard pile and set the opening color.

The goal of a round : be the first player to get rid of all the cards in your hand.

Taking a Turn

On your turn, you play a card that matches the top card of the discard pile by at least one criterion : color, number, or symbol. A red 7 can therefore be covered by any red card, or by any 7.

If you can't play anything, you draw a card. If it's playable, you may play it right away ; otherwise your turn ends.

Wild cards can be played at any time, on top of any card — with one important exception for the Wild Draw Four, explained below.

What the Action Cards Do

Card	Effect
Skip	The next player's turn is skipped
Reverse	The direction of play reverses. With two players, it acts like a "Skip"
Draw Two	The next player draws two cards and their turn is skipped
Wild	You choose the color that play continues with
Wild Draw Four	You choose the color, and the next player draws four cards and their turn is skipped

Stacking Draw Twos : Officially, It Doesn't Exist

This is the point that causes arguments. Playing a Draw Two on top of a Draw Two to push the total to 4, 6, 8 cards — the famous "stacking" move — is not part of the official rules. Mattel confirmed this publicly in January 2019 from the game's official account : penalty cards do not stack.

The rule is strict : someone plays a Draw Two on you, you draw two cards, and your turn is skipped. Same thing for the Draw Four. You can't counter it with another one.

That said, stacking is played at a huge majority of tables and does make games more tense. There's nothing wrong with keeping it as a house rule — as long as you agree on it before dealing, not the moment someone's about to take eight cards.

The Wild Draw Four and Challenging It

Second rule that's widely ignored : the Wild Draw Four can only be played if you have no cards of the current color in your hand. It's not a card you save for revenge ; it's a last resort.

And this rule is checkable. The targeted player can challenge the play : the player who put down the Wild Draw Four then has to show their hand.

Challenge Result	Consequence
The Draw Four was illegal (the player had a matching color)	That player draws 4 cards instead of the targeted player
The Draw Four was legal	The challenger draws 6 cards total : the original 4, plus a 2-card penalty

So challenging comes at a real cost if you're wrong. That's what makes bluffing possible.

Saying "Uno"

When you play your second-to-last card, you must call out "Uno." If you forget and an opponent catches it before the next player has taken their turn, you have to draw two cards as a penalty.

If no one catches it in time, you're off the hook.

Scoring

As soon as a player runs out of cards, the round ends. That player scores points based on the cards left in the hands of every other player.

Card Left in Hand	Value
Number card	Its face value (0 to 9)
Skip, Reverse, Draw Two	20 points each
Wild and Wild Draw Four	50 points each

Rounds continue until a player reaches 500 points : that player wins the game.

Many tables play a single round without keeping score. It's faster, but you lose the strategic element that pushes players to get rid of high-value cards before low ones.

The Most Common House Rules

None of these appear in the official rulebook. They work fine ; you just need to know you're adding them.

• Stacking Draw Twos and Draw Fours, by far the most common.
• The 0 that rotates hands, and the 7 that lets you swap your hand with another player.
• Playing a matching card out of turn to skip other players.
• Drawing until you get a playable card instead of drawing just one.
• Banning action cards as the last card, even though the official rules allow it — and a Draw Two or Draw Four played as the final card does apply to the next player.

The real advice comes down to one sentence: agree on these five points before you deal. That's what separates a game of Uno from a Uno negotiation.