Five Crowns: The Card Game, the Rules and the Editions

What the Five Crowns card game is

Five Crowns is rummy with a schedule. You try to turn your whole hand into sets, then go out. The twist is that the hand size and the wild card both change every round. Round one, you hold 3 cards and 3s are wild. Round eleven, you hold 13 cards and Kings are wild. Everything in between climbs one step at a time.

You score only what you get stuck with. So unlike most card games, low wins. A great round can score zero. A bad one can sting.

Box facts from PlayMonster's rules sheet:

• Players: 1 to 7 on the sheet; most listings say 2 to 7
• Ages: 8 and up
• Cards: two 58-card decks, 116 cards in all
• Rounds: 11
• Goal: lowest total score after round 11
• Competitive; no team mode on the sheet

If your family plays rummy already, you can learn Five Crowns in one round. If you don't, the first round is only 3 cards, which is about as gentle a start as a card game gets.

How Five Crowns plays

The rules below are in my own words, from PlayMonster's Five Crowns instructions (the 2019 sheet). The deck is the part people don't expect, so start there.

The deck: five suits, no 2s, no Aces

Each deck has five suits: stars, hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds. Every suit runs 3 through 10, then Jack, Queen and King. That's 11 cards a suit. Add three Jokers per deck, and you get 58. Shuffle two decks together and you have the full 116-card pile.

The fifth suit is stars. Marisol has never shown interest in a card game until I told her that.

The wild card follows the deal

Jokers are always wild. On top of that, one rank is wild each round, and it always matches the number of cards dealt.

Round	Cards dealt	Wild rank (plus Jokers)
1	3	3s
2	4	4s
3	5	5s
4	6	6s
5	7	7s
6	8	8s
7	9	9s
8	10	10s
9	11	Jacks
10	12	Queens
11	13	Kings

The rules sheet has the best tip for this: if you forget what's wild, count your hand. The number of cards you were dealt is the wild rank. It's a rule that checks itself.

Books and runs

Your goal each round is to arrange every card into books, runs or a mix.

• A book: three or more cards of the same rank, any suits. Three 8s, or four Kings.
• A run: three or more cards in a row, all in one suit. 5, 6, 7 of clubs, or 9 through Queen of stars.

A wild card can stand in for any card in a book or a run. You can use as many wilds as you like in one group, even side by side. Two Jokers and a 9 is a legal book of 9s.

Setup and the deal

1. Shuffle both decks together.
2. Deal 3 cards to each player, one at a time, going clockwise.
3. Put the rest face down as the draw pile. Turn the top card face up to start the discard pile.
4. Each new round, the next dealer adds one more card to every hand.

A turn: draw one, discard one

1. The player on the dealer's left goes first. Play moves clockwise.
2. Draw one card: the top of the draw pile, or the top of the discard pile. Only the top card.
3. Keep your books and runs in your hand. You don't lay them down early.
4. End your turn by discarding one card.

Your hand size never changes during a round. Draw one, discard one.

Going out

When your whole hand can be arranged into books and runs, start your turn as usual by drawing. Then lay all your groups on the table and discard your last card. You have to have one card left over to discard. That card can even be one you could have played.

Once someone goes out, every other player gets exactly one more turn. Draw as usual, lay down any books and runs you can, then discard. You can't add to anyone else's groups. Whatever you couldn't use stays in your hand and gets scored.

Scoring a round

Only leftover cards count. Cards in books and runs score nothing.

Card left in hand	Points
3 through 10	face value
Jack	11
Queen	12
King	13
This round's wild rank	20
Joker	50

So a Joker is the most expensive card to get caught holding. If you have a wild you can't fit anywhere, the rules let you discard it. That saves you points, though it may hand the next player exactly what they wanted.

A round-four example, in my own numbers

Round four deals 6 cards, so 6s are wild. Say your hand is the 4, 5 and 6 of hearts, two Queens and a Joker. The hearts are a run. The Queens plus the Joker are a book of Queens. On your turn you draw a 9 of spades, lay down both groups and discard the 9. You go out with zero points.

Now flip it. Someone else goes out first, and you're left with a Queen of stars, a King of clubs and a Joker you couldn't fit into anything. On your last turn nothing comes together, so all three count: 12 + 13 + 50 = 75 points. Same round, very different evening.

How the game ends

After round 11, add up everyone's totals. Lowest wins. If there's a tie, the sheet gives you a choice: call it a shared win, or deal a 6-card tiebreak round for the tied players only.

Dana's ruling: in our house, ties stay ties. Nobody deals a tiebreak after round 11 on a school night. It's in the rules either way, so everybody's happy, or at least equally tired.

Why the late rounds matter

The rules sheet's slogan says the game isn't over "'til the Kings go wild" (PlayMonster). It's a fair warning. Round 11 has 13 cards in every hand. A player stuck with a few face cards and a Joker can lose 80 or more points in one go, while the player who went out loses nothing. A lead after round 6 is a lead, not a win.

That swing is also why the game works for mixed tables. Early rounds are short and quick for a newer player. Late rounds reward the patient one.

Common Five Crowns mix-ups

From the rules sheet, these are the ones to settle before you deal:

1. Laying groups down early. You keep everything in your hand until you go out.
2. Going out without a discard. You need one card left to throw away.
3. Playing on someone else's groups. Not allowed, even on the final turn.
4. Taking deeper discards. Only the top card of the discard pile is available.
5. Forgetting the wild. It's the number of cards in your hand, plus Jokers, every round.

House rules some tables use

These are house rules, not PlayMonster's. Agree on them before round one.

• One scorekeeper, one pencil. The sheet says the scorekeeper records and tallies scores. Pick one person and stick with them for all 11 rounds.
• A short game. Play only rounds 1 through 6 when time is tight. Lowest score still wins, but you lose the big swings at the end, so it plays tamer.
• Mark the dealer. Put a coin in front of the dealer and pass it left each round, so nobody argues about whose deal it is around round 8.

Five Crowns editions on Amazon US right now

Our data for this page lists 5 Five Crowns editions on Amazon US as of October 2026, all from PlayMonster, matched by the name on the listing. The table above shows the players, age and play time each listing states. Where a listing leaves a field blank, I've left it blank too.

The standard game

• Five Crowns. The plain listing: 2 to 7 players, ages 8 to 12 on the listing, rummy-style. The rules sheet says ages 8 and up, which I'd trust over the listing's upper limit.
• Five Crowns Collectible Tin. The listing says it comes in a storage tin and lists 1 to 7 players, ages 8+. The 1-player bottom of that range matches the rules sheet's 1 to 7.

If you want the game exactly as the rules above describe it, these two are the place to start. The tin is the one to pick if the cards will live in a drawer with other games.

Smaller and travel boxes

• Five Crowns Mini Round. Listed for 2 to 4 players and 15 minutes, in a storage tin. It's the only Five Crowns listing in our data that gives a play time, and the only one with a 4-player cap.
• Five Crowns Travel Case. The listing title says a travel case and a score card are included. It doesn't list players or age.
• Five Crowns Waterproof. The edition name on the listing is Waterproof, and the title mentions travel. It doesn't list players or age in our data.

The Mini Round's 15 minutes and 2-to-4 cap suggest a smaller game than the 11-round standard, but the listing doesn't explain what changes, so I won't guess. If your group is 5 or more, stick with the standard or tin edition.

Expansions and add-ons

No Five Crowns expansions are in our data. The rules sheet's own add-on idea is simple: combine two complete games to seat up to 14 people. That doubles the deck, not the rules.

Who should skip Five Crowns

Skip it if your table wants a short game every time. Eleven rounds is the full game, and the last few hands are long. The house-rule short game above helps, but it changes the feel.

Skip it if anyone at the table dislikes holding cards for a long time without playing them. In Five Crowns you keep everything in your hand until you go out. There's no laying down progress mid-round.

And skip it if your youngest player is under 8 or still learning to add two-digit numbers. Scoring a round means adding up face values, 11s, 12s, 13s and the occasional 50.

If you like Five Crowns, look at these

Picked by what they share with it: rummy-style sets and runs, and a table of 2 to 7.

• Phase 10: sets and runs with a goal that changes as you go
• Rummikub: runs and groups with tiles instead of cards
• Skip-Bo: another card game built on sequences
• Card games: the full card-game shelf
• Best family card games: a ranked list built from player counts and ages

Count your cards. That's the wild. That's the whole trick.