Tonk Online: your next game starts here

Welcome to Tonk Online!

Tonk gets straight to the action: build combinations and lower the value of your hand. Watch your opponents and choose the right moment to make your move.

Rediscover a card-game classic. Get to know the rules, sharpen your strategy and get ready for your next hand.

How to playThe rules

Tonk Overview

From offline to online

Tonk is a popular, fast-moving card game for two to six players who race to make matches and play all their cards before their opponents.

Tonk has lots of variations that groups can use to make their games more exciting, and it’s a game widely used for gambling. Players familiar with Rummy or Conquian will be able to learn the basics of Tonk quickly, making it a fun, less common game that card players everywhere can enjoy.

Today, you can take your favorite card game from the table to the screen and find players from all over the world. The game perfectly adapts itself to the digital world and you can easily play whenever from other players around the worlds.

Tonk variants

Tonk—sometimes called Tunk—is often played for money, so one of the most common variations of Tonk is to play for something other than money: points, pretzels, washers, or low-value money like coins.

Some variations make it illegal to hold a spread in your hand.

In some games, if a player is dealt 50 points they are paid a double stake, but 49 points is only paid a single stake.

Some games use a rule that a player dealt 15 points or fewer automatically wins a single or double stake. It’s a bit like Ace No Face in Euchre, rewarding the player who is dealt a really bad hand.

Tonk Online Features

Our Tonk Leagues

We start new leagues every week. You can challenge 29 other players, and every time you win you get closer to the top of the leader board. The top ten players at the end of the week advance to a higher league. There they have an opportunity to win even bigger prizes, but they face better players, too, so make sure your skills are sharp. The bottom ten go down a league. It’s an opportunity to keep working on your game. We feature ten different leagues, so you’ll always find someone waiting for you to prove just how good you are. We offer bonuses every four hours. They can jumpstart your progress and get you to the tougher leagues faster!
Our Tonk Leagues

Our Tonk Tournaments

Join our weekly tournaments to compete against Tonk players from all over the world! Tournaments start with the quarter final Phase. Lose and you’re out situation, win and you’re in! Tournaments have three games, and then the points are totaled and the winners get rewarded! Every tournament features prizes and bragging rights. With players from all over the world, you’ll be ready to let everyone know about your card-playing mastery. Enjoy new challenges, new opponents, and new opportunities, coming your way every week!
Our Tonk Tournaments

Our Tonk Missions

Weekly and daily missions really add variety and challenge to your usual gaming routine. You’ll always find something new when you decide to enter a Mission. There are lots of ways to approach your Tonk games: how about winning a certain number of matches?Accumulating points? Winning tokens? You’ll find all this and more in Missions! Completed mission give you points toward more exciting prizes. If you think you’ve got the skills needed to complete, give Missions a try next time!
Our Tonk Missions

Our Tonk villages

Roll out the red carpet, it’s time to welcome you to the Villages! In our latest new way to enjoy your favorite classic card games, you earn hammers with every victory that you use to add items and complete collections to build your own customizable Village. Gather enough, and you’ll receive free prizes and awards. We add a new theme with new items every two weeks, so there’s always something to aim for. Now your games matter even more than ever. What will you build next? Find out in the Villages!
Our Tonk villages

Our Tonk games

You’ll always find someone ready for a Tonk game here at TonkOnline.com. Choose from an assortment of fast-paced Tonk games in a safe, easy-to-use environment. Here, the focus is on the games and providing you the best possible Tonk experience on the web. We are always adding new ways to play and new ways to meet challenges that offer fun and prizes. Be sure to visit often, because you never know which Tonk game is being added next!
Our Tonk games

Best of Tonk players

Are you passionate about playing Tonk? Are you looking to learn the game? Do you think you’re the best Tonk player in the world? Whatever your skill level, you’re sure to find players to match and a game just starting here at TonkOnline.com. With each game, you’ll develop your skills and learn new strategies to help you move up the Leaderboards. Do you have what it takes to be a champion?
Best of Tonk players

How to play Tonk

  1. Introduction

    Fans of Tonk are attracted to its fast pace and simple rules that are easy to learn if you’re familiar with Rummy and similar games. Generally played by two to four players, the main goal of Tonk is to make matches and play all your cards before your opponents. There are other nuances, of course, and one of the main attractions of face-to-face Tonk is gambling on the games.

    There’s a lot of skills involved, but as in most card games, there’s a lot of luck, too. As you learn the game, you’ll develop strategies that involve both skill and luck! Welcome to Tonk!

  2. Card Distribution and Scoring

    Tonk uses a standard 52-card deck, plus the two Jokers. Jokers are wild and can be played as any card from the deck.

    Each player receives seven cards. Leftover cards become the stockpile and the top card is placed beside it, face up.

    This is the first card of the discard pile.

    Tonk is a game where lowest score wins. Players of other points-scoring card games may be familiar with some of the points values of Tonk cards, but their are some slight variations.

    Face Cards (King, Queen, Jack) are 10 points each. Aces are worth 1 point. Numbered cards are worth their value (a Five of Clubs is worth 5 points, for example).

    Jokers are worth zero points.

  3. Turn Structure

    The player to the left of the dealer goes first.

    Each player either draws from the stockpile or adds the top card from the discard pile to their hand.

    (Only the player on the dealer's left may take the first upcard.)

    Before they discard, a player may "Tonk" (also called a knock) if the unmatched cards in their hand score five or less. The player then spreads their hand onto the table, separating matched and unmatched cards.

    Matched sets may have no more than four cards, and they also must include at least two natural cards (not Jokers substituting for a card). A sequence or a run may be three cards or more.

    Remaining players then each have one turn to draw, take the discard, meld, lay off on the tunker's melds, and discard. (If all the tunker's cards were matched, no one may lay off on their hand).

  4. Winning the Game

    The goal of Tonk is to lay all of your cards by playing spreads. A spread is a set of three or four identical cards (Fours of each suit, for example), or a run of three or far cards in sequence of the same suit (Jack, Queen, King of clubs, for example).

    As in Rummy, a player may add their own cards to another player’s spread (or meld, as it’s called in some games).

    The game ends when one player has played all their cards or when a player lays all their cards face up on the table

    See our complete rules

History of Tonk

Origin of Tonk

Tonk was popular in the American Jazz scene of the 1930s and 1940s. Whether the game came first or the song came first is unclear, but legendary musician Duke Ellington recorded “Tonk” in 1946, cementing the game’s reputation in clubs and beyond.

There is evidence that the earliest forms of Tonk originated in Italy in the 19th century, but the game likely grew from a simplification or variation of one of the many Rummy-type games popular around the world.

Origin of Tonk

Tonk Popularity

Tonk may not be as popular as Poker or Rummy, but the way it combines the mechanics of meld-laying games and the stakes of gambling make Tonk endearingly popular to the people who play. Now, the game is mainly played in the US, in Tennessee and Missori, but have a huge popularity in India.

Tonk players race to play all their cards before their opponents, aiming for the lowest overall score.

“Knocking,” or laying all your cards at once, gives Tonk a rewarding physicality that goes beyond the strategy of just playing meld.

Tonk has always been popular with gamblers at clubs and halls. Now at TonkOnline.com, you can join this fast-paced game without leaving your desk or phone!

Tonk Popularity

Glossary of Terms

Tonk (or Tunk)

The name of the game! If you start with 50 points in your hand, you can say "Tonk!" and win instantly. Otherwise, it's just a great excuse to play cards and talk trash.

Spread

The sets or runs of cards you lay down to get rid of your hand. Think of it as your master plan for victory.

Set

Three or four cards of the same rank (like three Kings). A good way to make progress and impress your opponents.

Run (or Sequence)

Three or more cards in a row of the same suit (like 5, 6, 7 of Hearts). If you've got one, you’re on your way to victory.

Knock

Ending the round by saying “Knock!” or “Tonk!” when you think your hand has the lowest points left. (Just make sure you really do have the fewest points, or you’re almost certainly going to lose!)

Drop (or Go Down)

When you start with 50 points and win automatically. This is the card game equivalent of a slam dunk.

Stockpile (or Deck)

The draw pile in the middle of the table. Your potential lifeline or a pile of disappointment, depending on your luck.

Discard Pile

The face-up pile of rejected cards. Someone will love them somewhere!

Draw

Taking a card from the stockpile or discard pile to (hopefully) improve your hand.

Hit (or Lay Off)

Adding a card to someone else’s spread. A sneaky way to shrink your own hand and mess with the game flow.

Bust (or Tonk Out):

When you run out of cards before anyone else. That’s the objective of the game!

Deadwood

The leftover, ungrouped cards in your hand that count against you in the end. The higher the deadwood, the worse your chances are for winning.

Face Cards

The Kings, Queens, and Jacks. Worth 10 points each, so be careful—too many can weigh you down!

Ace

It can be worth either 1 or 11, depending on the game rules you're playing.

Meld

A fancy way of saying "group your cards into spreads." If you’re good at melding, you’ll be good at Tonk.

Stiff

When you get dealt a terrible hand with no sets, no runs, no hope. It can be hard to win with a hand like this, but stranger things have happened !

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