Domino Bingo

[Jarrell Campbell]

A card-type domino game, played by two players only, using a Double-Six domino set and a cribbage board or score sheet. This game is based on a playing-card game called Bingo or Sixty-Six, and was popular at the end of the 19th-century. The game is related to Bezique and involves some quite complex gameplay.

The dominoes are shuffled, facedown, then each player draws seven tiles that only they can look at. The remaining tiles make up the boneyard and are drawn upon by the players during the course of play.

The second player turns over a tile from the boneyard and the highest suit marked on it becomes the trump suit. Blanks count as seven. The drawn tile is returned to the boneyard face-up but set slightly off from it because this tile must be drawn last.

The lead player sets down any tile of his choice followed by the second player setting down any tile of his choice with no obligation to follow suit. The trick is won according to the following rules:

At the end of each hand, the winner draws a tile from the boneyard and plays the leading tile in the next hand. However, he may not draw the face-up trump tile unless there are only two left, in which case he takes the face-up tile and the other player draws the remaining facedown tile.

When a player believes he can score 70 or more points without drawing further tiles from the boneyard, he may announce that he is "closing the game" and turn the face-up tile facedown. The rest of the hand's tricks are played according to the following rules with winning tiles ranked as before:

If a player announced he was "closing the game" and he fails to make the 70 points required, then both players score the points they made during the play of the hand, but the other player scores two rubbers as well.

Points are scored by winning tricks with either a special tile, a double, or with a tile bearing the trump suit. The blank suit counts as 7. Tiles only score once as either a special tile, a double, or a trump tile.

Players may also score points by showing any doubles remaining in their hand once they have won a trick by playing a double. Players do this by announcing the number of doubles they wish to score for and then showing the other player the doubles in their hand. The doubles are scored and subsequently taken back into their hand by the scoring player. The number of points scored for showing doubles are as follows in the table:

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Bingo is a domino game based on the the card game Sixty-six, and has nothing to do with the popular lottery game played with cards that hold a grid of numbers. In America in the 19th century, in regions where playing-cards were prohibited on religious grounds, several popular trick-taking card games were adapted to use dominoes instead. Other examples are Domino Euchre and Domino Loo or Rounce, but according to contemporary sources Bingo was the domino game demanding the most skill.

It seems that most of these American domino trick-taking games fell into disuse in the 20th century. 20th century game books, if they mention them at all, simply recycle the old descriptions or adapt them in a way that indicates that the author is unfamiliar with the game itself and is relying only on an imperfect understanding of an earlier written description. A notable exception is Texas 42 which continues to be played in that state along with its variant Moon.

Because of its high reputation, 20th and 21st century authors have continued to feature Bingo in collections of domino game rules. To repair what seemed to be gaps in the 19th century accounts they have superimposed their own interpretations of some of the rules, producing a game that is probably very different from the 19th century original.

On this page I try to describe the game as I believe it would have been played in its 19th century heyday. For this, perhaps the most useful description one of the earliest, found in Hoyle's Games by 'Trumps' (William Brisbane Dick) published in 1868. It states that "this game is played as similarly to the card game Sixty-Six as the difference between dominoes and cards will permit". This principle enables many details to be understood that would otherwise be obscure. The Standard Hoyle (Excelsior, New York, 1887) attributed to Barnet Phillips also provides some useful insights. In this book Bingo is hailed as 'the king of domino games', an accolade that probably helped to sustain its reputation through the 20th century even though few if any players survived.

This is a trick-taking game, a trick consisting of one tile played by each player. The winner of each trick stores the two tiles face down and plays the first tile to the next trick. The tiles have values and the objective is to collect tiles in tricks worth at least 70 points and claim a win. This ends the play and if the claim is correct the player scores one or more game points (sometimes known as sets or rubbers). The first player to score 7 or more game points (sets, rubbers) over as many deals as it takes wins the game.

In this game the blanks represent the number 7 throughout. The double blank [0-0], known as the Bingo, is the highest tile in the set and beats all other tiles, even the trumps.

In each suit, the highest tile is the double of that suit, followed by the others in descending order. Tiles that show a trump number belong only to trumps. Tiles that are not trumps and not doubles belong to two suits.

If the deal is played right to the end the winner of the very last trick (the 14th trick) is awarded 10 extra points. So with a minimum of 141 points available, when all the tiles have been played at least one player is always in a position to claim to have 70 points or more.

The start player for the first deal is chosen by drawing tiles or any other convenient method. For subsequent deals, the winner of each deal is the start player in the next deal. The whole set of 28 tiles is shuffled face down.

Each player draws a hand of seven tiles. The players arrange these tiles in front of them so that they can see the faces of their own tiles but the opponent cannot see them. Then the second player turns one tile in the boneyard face up. The high end of this tile determines the trump number for this hand. This tile stays face up on the table and it is drawn as the last boneyard tile unless a player "closes the game" as described below.

In each trick, the first player plays (leads) a tile and the opponent responds by playing a tile. In phase one there are no restrictions - in each trick each player can play any tile from their hand. The winner of the trick is determined as follows.

The winner of the trick collects the two played tiles, stores them face down in the collection of tiles that he or she has won, draws one face down tile from the boneyard and adds it to his or her hand. The loser of the trick then similarly draws a tile so that both players have 7 tiles again. The winner of the trick plays the first tile to the next trick.

After the winner of the 7th trick has drawn a tile, the only tile remaining in the boneyard will be the face up tile that was used to determine the trump suit. The loser of the trick draws this tile and the winner of the leads to the first trick of phase two.

The second phase of play begins when the boneyard is empty, or if a player closes the game (see below). In the second phase, the first player to each trick is still free to lead any tile, but the second player must 'follow suit' and subject to this restriction must win the trick if possible. Specifically this means that:

The points for declaring doubles are only valid after the declarer has won at least one trick. This will normally already be the case when the doubles are declared, since the declarer earns the right to lead to a trick by having won the previous trick. The exception is when the first player declares when leading a double to the very first trick. In this case the points for the declaration will not count unless and until this player wins a trick.

The 70 points for emperor are enough to win the deal, so as soon as they are scored the declarer can claim, end the play and score one or more games points. Declaring four or more doubles including the [0-0] also wins automatically since the player wins at least 50+10 for the doubles and 14 more by leading the [0-0] to the trick.

The lucky player who holds all seven doubles and declares them wins 3 game points without further play. However, holding seven doubles when it is your opponent's lead is not quite so good. One of them must be used to take the lead, and the player can then declare just six doubles (emperor) and claim an ordinary win.

If blanks are not trump and the player on lead holds the [0-0] and the double of trumps, this is also enough to claim a win. The declaration scores 30 points (20+10) and in addition the player will take at least 42 points (14+28) by winning tricks with these two tiles.

Tricks are stored face down. A player may look at the most recent trick but not at earlier tricks, so players must keep a mental count of points takes. A player who believes they have 70 or more points can claim a win. This ends the play. The tiles in the player's tricks are then exposed and their values totalled, together with the value of any doubles declaration by the player.

As in the card game 66, the rule that players must keep a mental count of points taken and cannot look back at past tricks was strictly observed. However, new players learning to play Bingo may prefer at first to keep a running tally of the points taken, perhaps using a Cribbage board or some other device, until they become familiar with the scoring.

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