# Merle Robbins

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{{Short description|American inventor of the card game UNO}}
'''Merlin "Merle" Robbins''' (September 12, 1911 &ndash; January 14, 1984) was an American [barber](/source/barber) from [Reading, Ohio](/source/Reading%2C_Ohio), who invented the [card game](/source/card_game) [UNO](/source/Uno_(card_game)).<ref name="obit">{{cite news|title=Merle Robbins died|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/16/obituaries/merle-robbins.html|accessdate=22 October 2016|newspaper=New York Times|date=16 January 1984}}</ref> In 1971, he invented UNO to resolve an argument with his son Ray, a teacher, about the rules of [Crazy Eights](/source/Crazy_Eights).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Uno Nasıl Oynanır? Kartları ve Cezaları|url=https://www.oyunbilim.com/kutu/uno/|date=2020-05-22|website=OyunBilim|language=tr|access-date=2020-05-22}}</ref> The original decks were designed and made on the family dining room table. He and his family mortgaged their home to raise $8,000 and created the first 5,000 UNO decks to sell. At first, he sold them from his barber shop, while his son Ray gave them away to his students. In 1972, he sold the rights to UNO to International Games for $50,000 plus [royalties](/source/Royalty_payment) of 10 cents per game.<ref name="obit" />

Toy giant [Mattel](/source/Mattel) produces the game in 80 countries and, by 2006, had sold over 150 million copies worldwide. <!-- this is when the fact was added to the article, but it still seems to be the latest publically available figure found at the 2024 blog post https://www.uno-cardgame.com/blog/the-history-of-uno -->
Robbins died in 1984 in [Cincinnati, Ohio](/source/Cincinnati). He was 72.<ref>''Ohio, Death Records, 1908-1932, 1938-2007''</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Schuldt|first=Gretchen|title=Cards were stacked for success of UNO|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=WYFQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OBIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6606,1069000&dq=ray-robbins+uno&hl=en|accessdate=29 February 2012|newspaper=Milwaukee Sentinel|date=6 February 1984|archive-date=21 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200221080111/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=WYFQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OBIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6606,1069000&dq=ray-robbins+uno&hl=en|url-status=dead}}</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*{{fg|170750118}}
*[http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/1046/john-uno BoardGameGee]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robbins, Merle}}
Category:1911 births
Category:1984 deaths
Category:American businesspeople in the entertainment industry
Category:Uno (card game)
Category:People from Reading, Ohio
Category:People from Milford, Ohio
Category:20th-century American engineers

{{US-business-bio-1910s-stub}}
{{US-engineer-stub}}{{Uno (card game)}}

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Merle Robbins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merle_Robbins) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merle_Robbins?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.