Charles Cotton describes its ancestor in 1674 as "Five Cards", and gives the nickname five fingers to the Five of Trumps extracted from the fact that the Irish word cúig means both 'five' and 'trick'.

[1] It is supposed to be of great antiquity, and widely believed to have originated in Ireland, although "its venerable ancestor", Maw,[2] of which James I of England was very fond, is a Scottish game.

Twenty-five is descended from the old Scottish game of Maw, which dates to at least 1548 and is mentioned frequently up to about 1650.

[7] Maw was fashionable during the reign of James I and became the chief game of the English court.

[8] Thereafter the game disappears again from the literature until the early 19th century where it resurfaces under the names of various descendants including Five and Ten, Spoil Five and Forty-five.

Twenty-five itself, also called five-and-twenty, emerged alongside these other variants and is mentioned as early as 1833 in the Dublin Penny Journal in an article against gambling: "...rustic gambling is conducted on the plan of a lottery.

The woman of the house has generally one or more of such articles [a turkey, goose, herrings or mutton] as those above mentioned, which are purchased by the party to play at a price far above their intrinsic value; each purchase is paid for in equal shares, and the winner of one or more games, at five and twenty, or first fifteen... carries off the prize..."[9] It is probably much older for, in 1858, an Irish periodical describes Twenty-Five and Forty-Five as "our own old games" in which the five of trumps, called five fingers, was the best card, followed by the Ace of Hearts.

Unlike Heather's rules for Forty-five, there was no jinking (winning the game on taking all five tricks) and no score of 5 for best trump.

A standard pack is used and each player receives five cards, or six or nine, and another is turned up to fix the trump suit.

Similarly, a player who holds the ace of trumps may himself rob the trump at any time before playing to the first trick, putting out any card and taking in the turn-up, but need not disclose the fact until it is his turn to play.

If no one succeeds there is a spoil, and a fresh stake, smaller than the original one as a rule, is put into the pool for the next round.

At Spoil Five a player winning the first three tricks straight off may claim the pool without further play.

But if he holds only indifferent cards, the best method is to throw the lead into his opponent's hand by playing an inferior card, in the hope of regaining it at the third trick, which is the critical stage of the game; and as three tricks constitute a five equally as four, it is reckoned better play to reserve the best cards till the third trick, than to risk the game by eagerness to secure the first two.