Play Spades Online with Friends, Free

Spades is a four-person game that's hard to gather four people for. Someone's running late, someone's across the country, someone only wants to play one game. Spades Night is built for exactly that: a private table in your browser, a link your friends tap to sit down, and bots in any seat nobody has taken. This guide walks through it step by step. If you need the rules first, start with the spades rules.

Start a private table

Open Spades Night in any browser. There's nothing to install and no account to create; you're seated as a guest.

On the menu you'll see Start game, Join game, and a Table rules link with a cog. To host a game with your own rules:

1. Tap Table rules.
2. Pick your match length and toggles (more on those below).
3. Tap Create table.

You land in the lobby with four seat cards and a table code at the top. You're the host.

If you just want to get moving, Start game opens a table on House Rules and you can invite from there too.

Invite with a link or code

In the lobby, tap Invite. The game copies an invite link to your clipboard. Paste it into your group chat, text thread, or wherever your friends are. When they tap it, they go straight to your table.

Every table also has a short five-character code shown at the top of the lobby. A friend can open Spades Night, tap Join game, and type the code. Handy when you're reading it out over a call.

Friends can pick any open seat. Partners sit across from each other, so who sits where decides the teams. If two of you want to be partners, take opposite seats.

Missing a player? Bots sit in

A spades table needs four seats, and Spades Night always fills them. Any seat without a person in it gets a bot when the game starts. Bots bid and play by the same rules as everyone else, and they're labelled so nobody mistakes one for a friend.

That means:

• Two of you: sit across as partners against two bots, or sit side by side as rivals, each with a bot partner. See spades with 2 players.
• Three of you: one bot takes the fourth seat, and whoever's paired with it has a silent partner.
• Four of you: no bots at all.

The table doesn't start on its own. As host, you tap Start the game when you're ready, so nobody gets dealt out while they're still finding the link. A friend who arrives before you start can tap a bot's seat to take it.

Pick your rules

The Table rules sheet opens on House Rules, which is how a lot of people play at home:

• Jokers on: Big Joker and Little Joker are the top two trump.
• Deuces high on: 2♦ and 2♠ rank above the A♠. The 2♥ and 2♣ come out so the deck stays at 52.
• Nil on: bid zero for +100 or −100.
• Blind nil on: offered only when your team is behind by 100 or more, for +200 or −200.
• Board on: a team contract under 4 is raised to 4.
• Bags penalty on: every 10 bags costs 100 points.
• Break spades on: no leading spades until one has been played on another suit.

You can also switch on 10 for 200, Sequential bidding (turn order instead of the default secret bid) and Blitz timers. Turn Jokers and Deuces high off and you're playing Classic: a plain 52-card deck with the A♠ on top. The House Rules button puts everything back.

For match length, choose:

• 4 hands: a quick match, about 12 to 18 minutes. Everyone deals once. A tie after four hands goes to a sudden-death hand.
• To 500: the traditional game, first team past 500.
• To 300: a shorter classic game.

Details on every option are in spades house rules, and the jokers setup is explained in spades with jokers.

Play in a Discord voice call

If your group already hangs out on Discord, play there instead. Spades Night runs as a Discord Activity inside a voice channel. Start it from the Activities button in the call, and everyone in the channel sees the table and can take a seat without leaving the conversation.

Voice runs through Discord's own voice chat, so you hear each other exactly as you normally would. Bots fill any empty seats there too. The full setup is on the Discord page.

Tips for a good spades night

A few things make an online game with friends feel like the real thing.

Get on a call. Spades is half cards, half talk. The browser version has no voice chat of its own, so open a call, a group video chat, or use Discord. Just don't talk about your hand: table talk is for trash talk, not signals.

Decide the rules before the deal. "Do we play jokers?" is a two-minute argument that's better had before cards are in anyone's hand. The Table rules sheet shows the whole table what you're playing.

Rotate partners. If one pair keeps running away with it, switch seats between games. Spades is more fun when every game is close.

Use the quick match for weeknights. Four hands in about 15 minutes means you can play two or three games without it eating the evening. Save the race to 500 for the weekend.

Keep the new player next to the strong one. Put your newest player across from your most patient one. Partners can't coach during a hand, but they can explain a bid afterwards.

Learn the lingo. Nothing says spades night like someone calling "set 'em" or "we're running a Boston." Brush up with our guide to spades table talk.

What the game handles for you

Playing online takes the bookkeeping off the table. Spades Night:

• Deals and rotates the dealer every hand.
• Collects bids, adds up team contracts, and applies board.
• Dims any card you can't legally play, so nobody can renege by accident.
• Scores every hand: contracts, bags, nil, blind nil, and Bostons.
• Keeps a clock: 30 seconds to bid, 15 seconds per card, plus two time banks each hand, so nobody stalls the table.

When it isn't your turn, you can drag a card forward to lock it in, and it plays the moment your turn comes. It keeps the game moving when everyone knows what they're doing.

New to the game? Send the group how to play spades before game night. It's a five-minute read.