What is muggins in dominoes?

Muggins is dominoes' built-in penalty for daydreaming - a rule that turns missed arithmetic into your opponent's points.

Quick answer: Muggins is the traditional table rule in All Fives: if you make a scoring play but fail to announce it, your opponent can call 'muggins!' and claim those points instead. The name stuck so hard that All Fives itself is often just called Muggins. Online, scoring is automatic, so nothing goes unclaimed.

The rule at the table

In face-to-face All Fives, points aren't awarded silently: you must spot and announce your own score when the open ends land on a multiple of five. Miss it, and any opponent who notices can call muggins and pocket the points you left on the table. The rule keeps every player counting every end after every play, which is exactly the discipline the game is meant to train.

Muggins as a name

The rule became so identified with the game that in many books and households Muggins simply is the name of All Fives, the way patience and solitaire name the same card games. You'll also meet the rule in cribbage, where it plays the identical role of punishing missed counts. The glossary untangles these overlapping names.

How it works online

Here the computer does the counting: every multiple of five is scored the moment it appears, for you and your opponent alike, so muggins never triggers. That shifts the whole skill from spotting scores to creating them - choosing plays that land the count on five while denying the reply. See how All Fives scoring works for the mechanics.

Play All Fives - counting handled for you

Related questions

How do you score in All Fives?

You score during play whenever the open ends of the layout add up to a multiple of five - ends of 3 and 2 score 5, a 6-6 double plus a 3 scores 15. When a hand ends, the winner also adds the opponent's leftover pips, rounded to the nearest five. First to the match target wins.

What is Fives and Threes?

Fives and Threes is the great British pub dominoes game. You score whenever the two open ends total a multiple of five or three - one point per five and per three, so a total of 15 scores the maximum eight. Games race to 61, traditionally pegged on a cribbage board.

How do you play dominoes?

In a two-player game, each player draws 7 tiles from a shuffled double-six set of 28, and the rest form the face-down boneyard. Players take turns adding a tile whose end matches an open end of the line. Empty your hand to win the hand, or hold the fewest pips if play blocks.