Players & Setup
Spades Royale is played with 4 players using a 52-card deck.
You can play with a partner (the player sitting across from you) or solo.
Each player gets 13 cards, and spades always beat any other suit.
Bidding
Before each round, everyone guesses how many tricks they’ll win — from 0 to 13.
In partners mode, your team’s bids are added together.
A Nil bid (0 tricks) means you’ll try to win none. If you succeed, you earn big points!
Partners: +100 / -100 points
Solo: +50 / -50 points
You can also bid Blind Nil (before seeing your cards) for an even bigger reward: +200 / -200.
Only available in partners mode.
Playing the Hand
The player to the dealer’s left starts. You can’t lead with a spade until someone “breaks” them (plays a spade when they can’t follow suit).
Always follow suit if you can. If not, play any card — including spades.
The highest spade wins the trick, or the highest card of the suit led if no spades are played.
Scoring
Make your bid? You get 10 points per trick you called.
Extra tricks (called “bags”) add 1 point each, but too many bags lead to a penalty.
Miss your bid? You lose 10 points per trick you promised.
Nil and Blind Nil bonuses or penalties apply as above.
The first team or player to reach the target score wins!
Rake & Payouts
There’s a 15% rake (small fee) taken from the total buy-in.
Solo: 1st place gets 75% of the prize pool, 2nd place gets 25%.
Partners: The prize is split between you and your teammate.
Ties: Split evenly in solo mode, or you get your buy-in back in partners