← Back to the game

The 42% Pledge

Forty-two points to a hand. Forty-two percent back to the game.

Why

This app is an ode to a game I love. I hope it makes a little money — most things that are worth keeping up cost something to keep up — but that was never the reason to build it. The pledge is how I plan to pay it forward and support and grow the game.

Forty-two percent because it's big enough to be real rather than a gesture but allow the project to pay for itself and expand.

What "net proceeds" means, exactly

Net proceeds are what actually lands in the bank: after app store fees, payment processing, and the cost of making any physical goods. Before any of my own time, which isn't charged for.

The wording matters. App stores take a cut of every tip before it reaches us, a hat costs money to make, and the web services this runs on — hosting, the table relay, the domain — cost money every month whether anybody plays or not. A pledge on gross would mean giving away money that was never received: the project would quietly lose money while technically keeping its word. Net is the version that can actually be kept.

Where it goes

Back to the people and places that keep the game going: the tournaments that still run, and the folks teaching it to somebody who hasn't played before.

Beyond that I'm not going to name names yet, because I have some contacts to make and I'd rather do this properly than announce early. When the first money is real, the first ledger will say exactly where it went.

If you run a tournament or teach others how to play and you think this should find you, say so by sending me an email.

Why 42, and why 42%

The game was invented by two boys in trouble for playing cards. William Thomas, twelve, and Walter Earl, fourteen, at Trapp Spring in Parker County in 1887. Their families were Baptist and card playing was forbidden — dominoes were not — so the two of them worked out a trick-taking game you could play with a double-six set, and played it where nobody would object.

It didn't stay in Parker County. Thomas ran a fruit route to Mineral Wells and taught it along the way; both families later moved to Fannin County and it went with them. By 1940 it was being played in every corner of the state, and Texas soldiers carried it overseas during the war. On 17 June 2011 the Legislature made it the official State Domino Game of Texas.

42 is a Texas game, maintained for well over a century in halls and kitchens by people who taught it to each other. The 42% Pledge is named after it, and the goal is to support those same places. Of course we want even more Texans playing 42 — at a kitchen table if there's a game going, and on texasbones.com if there isn't.

Source: the Texas State Historical Association's Handbook of Texas.

The ledger

Once a year this page will show what came in, what 42% of it came to, and where it went — with names and figures.

What this is not

Texas Bones isn't a charity and doesn't claim to be. It's a small outfit making a public promise about what it does with its money. Anything given is given by the company; it isn't tax-deductible to you, and buying a hat isn't a charitable contribution. It's a hat, from an outfit that sends a fair share of what it makes back to the game.

And no advertising

Not now, not later. No banners, no videos between hands, nothing for sale that helps you win. The game is free and complete. Every table and every domino back is free and always will be. The only money in the app is a tip, given by people who feel like it, and it buys nothing except goodwill.

← Back to the game

Last updated September 2026 · txbonesgame@gmail.com