A domino is a type of tile that is used in a game of dominoes. It is a rectangular block with a line down the middle that separates the two ends into two squares. The end with the highest number of spots is called the lead piece. The player who lays the lead piece down first is the winner.

A traditional domino set consists of seven faces. Each face has a number of spots from one to six. Some sets also use Arabic numerals instead of pips.

A double-18 set has 190 tiles. A double-12 set has 91 tiles, and a double-9 set has 55 tiles. These are the most common sets. However, there are several different types of dominoes. There are also Chinese dominoes and European-style dominoes. Traditionally, European-style dominoes were made of dark hardwood such as ebony. Some of them are made from ivory and mother of pearl oyster shell.

Although dominoes have been around for quite some time, it is unknown exactly how they began. One theory is that the name “domino” came from the name of a cape worn by priests. Another theory says that the name originated with a crude woodcut on paper popular among French peasants.

The Western dominoes were first recorded in Italy and France in the mid-18th century. The game spread to England by the late 1700s. Some prisoners of war brought them to England. The most common variants of the game are trick-taking, scoring, and positional games. The most basic of these is the double-six game.

A domino is also called a card or bone. They have a black undersurface and are normally twice as long as they are wide. They can be stacked on end in a row, or pushed forward with increasing force. The pieces can be played against a computer or a person. There are many ways to play the game, and a lot of people like to use them as toys. They can be used to create a fun course.

Dominoes are divided into two squares, called the ends, which are marked with a set of pips. The highest value piece has six pips on each end. Other pieces are blank. These are the pieces left behind after the game.

Some dominoes have a single tile and others have two. The single tile is often a suit of 0 or 3. The other pieces are sometimes blank.

In the game of 5s and 3s, the player draws a pair of tiles and tries to get the sum of five or three. The total can be calculated by dividing the number of points by the number of pips on the tile. In other games, such as Che Deng, the player tries to get the highest score possible.

The most common domino games are positional games. They can be played by a person, a computer, or a team. Depending on the rules, players can also see the value of their opponents’ tiles.