Drunk Uno

Drunk Uno is standard Uno with the penalties turned into drinks. Nothing about the card game changes, which is the point: everyone at the party already knows it, so the explanation is a thirty-second list of who drinks on which card. All you need is a regular Uno deck (Uno is Mattel’s trademark; any Uno deck works, and so does a standard deck with a bit of mapping, see variations). Of all the drinking card games on this site, this is the one with the lowest barrier to entry and the fastest second round.

What you need

• A standard Uno deck (108 cards: 0 to 9 in four colors, plus Skip, Reverse, Draw Two, Wild, and Wild Draw Four)
• A drink per player. Beer or a long mixed drink; the sips come often
• A table everyone can reach
• 3 to 10 players; 4 to 6 is the sweet spot

Setup

1. Shuffle and deal 7 cards to each player. Same as regular Uno.
2. Stack the rest face down and turn over the top card. If the first card is an action card, treat it as if the dealer played it; if it is a Wild Draw Four, bury it and flip again.
3. Read out the drinking rules once. The table below is the common set. Say now whether Draw Twos stack.
4. The player to the dealer’s left starts. Clockwise until a Reverse.

How to play Drunk Uno

1. Play a card that matches the top card by color, number, or symbol. A Wild can be played on any card.
2. No playable card means you draw one and take a sip. A drawn card that fits can go straight down on the same turn.
3. Action cards hit the next player with a drink. Skip and Reverse cost 1 sip, Draw Two costs 2 sips and 2 cards, Wild Draw Four costs 4 sips and 4 cards. Full list in the table.
4. Say “Uno” when you play your second-to-last card. If someone catches you before the next player acts, draw 2 cards and drink 2 sips.
5. Play your last card to end the round. Everyone still holding cards drinks 1 sip per card in their hand. The winner drinks nothing.
6. Shuffle and deal again. Rotate the dealer. Three rounds is a good pregame; five is a full evening.

Card meanings

Standard Uno effect first, drink second. The drinking rules are the ones that turn up on every Drunk Uno list; the alternatives in brackets are common swaps.

Card	Standard Uno effect	Who drinks
Number card (0 to 9)	Play on matching color or number.	Nobody, unless it is the same number as the card under it (see variations).
Skip	The next player loses their turn.	The skipped player drinks 1 sip.
Reverse	Direction of play flips.	The player who was about to go and now is not drinks 1 sip. With 2 players, acts as a Skip.
Draw Two	The next player draws 2 and loses their turn.	They also drink 2 sips. Stackable if agreed: pass it on with your own Draw Two and the total grows.
Wild	You choose the new color.	Everyone drinks 1 sip, including you (or you name one player to drink 2).
Wild Draw Four	You choose the color; the next player draws 4 and loses their turn.	They also drink 4 sips. Stackable with other Wild Draw Fours if agreed.
Drawing from the pile	You could not play.	1 sip per card drawn.
Forgetting “Uno”	Official penalty is draw 2.	Draw 2 and drink 2 sips.

Variations and house rules

• Kings Cup with Uno cards. Spread the Uno deck in a ring around a cup and assign rules by number, Kings Cup style. Our mapping: 0 is Waterfall, 1 you drink, 2 pick someone, 3 everyone drinks, 4 floor, 5 heaven, 6 categories, 7 rhyme, 8 mate, 9 make a rule. Skip is Question Master, Reverse is Thumb Master, Draw Two sends 2 sips to anyone, Wild Draw Four pours into the cup and the fourth one drinks it. The full Kings Cup rules explain every one of those.
• Draw and drink (the old DrinkPlays version). No hands at all. Stack the deck face down and take turns flipping one card. You drink if your card is the same color or the same number as the last one, and if you flip a Reverse. Skip means you pick someone to drink, Draw Two means the next player drinks, Wild Draw Four means everyone drinks. Quick and mindless, good for a bar table.
• Same number, drink. Playing a number card with the same number as the card under it (a red 5 on a blue 5) makes everyone else drink 1 sip. Rewards holding doubles.
• The 7-0 rule. Mattel’s own optional rule: playing a 7 lets you swap hands with any player, playing a 0 makes everyone pass their hand in the direction of play. Add a sip for whoever receives the worst hand, which is a judgment call and therefore an argument.
• Stack everything. Draw Twos stack on Draw Twos, Wild Draw Fours on Wild Draw Fours. Whoever cannot continue the chain takes all the cards and all the sips. A four-card chain of Draw Twos is 8 cards and 8 sips, so keep the drinks mild if this is on.
• Color of your drink. House rule. Each player names a color at the start. Whenever the color in play changes to yours, you drink 1 sip. Adds a small background hum of drinking to every turn.
• Standard-deck Uno. No Uno deck? Use a regular deck with suits as colors, Jacks as Skip, Queens as Reverse, Kings as Draw Two, and Aces as Wild. There is no Wild Draw Four, which most people consider an improvement.

Tips

• Use beer or something light. Drunk Uno generates a sip almost every turn, and a Wild Draw Four chain can land 8 sips on one person in a single moment; with spirits that is a real problem, not a laugh.
• Say “Uno” clearly and early. Most of the drinking in a game of Drunk Uno comes from forgotten Unos, not from action cards.
• Hold a Reverse for when the person on your other side is down to two cards. It is the only defensive card in the deck.
• Decide on stacking before the first Draw Two. Stacking is the rule half the room grew up with and the other half has never heard of.