Sacramento State student named first UNO world champion after Las Vegas tournament

The first world championship competition of the popular card game UNO was held this week and the newly crowned champ is a student in Sacramento.

Aldwin Rodriguez, 20, studies mechanical engineering at Sacramento State and is now the official UNO world champion.

The championship tournament began Thursday at the HyperX Esports Arena in Las Vegas. It was streamed live on TikTok to thousands of viewers. The games were hosted by Twitch streamer and professional gamer Tyler Blevins, better known as Ninja, and Hannah Stocking, a content creator on YouTube and TikTok.

The contestants in the UNO tournament were drawn from a group of nearly 2 million people who competed in the UNO mobile tournament over the summer, plus players selected from a sweepstakes held in celebration of the game’s 50th anniversary.

“Seeing thousands of our passionate fans come together from across the globe over their love of UNO is a testament to the power of this simple and universal game that transcends languages and cultures,” Mattel Games global head Ray Adler said in a prepared statement.

After making it through elimination matches and winning the grand finale game of just eight players, Rodriguez won a $50,000 prize and a first-place trophy.

“I still can’t believe I ACTUALLY DID IT,” Rodriguez wrote in an Instagram post commemorating his win. “Thank you to everybody that supported me, I literally couldn’t have done it without you guys.”

This story was originally published November 13, 2021 at 1:09 PM.