How to Play Spades Card Game: Rules, Bidding, Gameplay, Scoring

Card games have always been the perfect way to kill time and bond with friends. Spades is one such classic trick-taking game that has been keeping players hooked for decades with its perfect mix of strategy, teamwork, and a little bit of luck.

But nothing kills the fun faster than being the only one in the group who doesn't know how to play. You’re stuck there, feeling left out, watching them have fun without you.

Let's change that and teach you how to play spades card game, the most common card game your friends play.

In this guide, we’ll briefly discuss what are spades and how to play spades step by step. We also have a small handy guide on spades scoring.

As a bonus in the end, you’ll also learn about Scrambly, a platform that pays you with cash and gift cards for playing games like spades and others.

So let’s start.

What is Spades?

Spades is a competitive card game from the trick-taking family, where you predict how many rounds (or tricks) you can win, then actually pull it off.

In each round of the game, every player throws down a card, and the highest one takes the trick, unless someone drops a spade, because spades always trump the other suits.

That’s right, no matter what suit ace or king someone plays, a lousy two of spades still wins over them. That should answer why they named the game as Spades.

A full game has 13 tricks, since you’re dealing out the whole 52-card deck to four players (13 each). But if you’re short on time or patience, you can agree to a lower number of tricks.

You get points for winning tricks equal to or above the number of your predicted bet.

That was a brief overview of the spades card game rules.

Now let’s show you how to play spades step by step by covering these rules in detail.

How to Play Spades Card Game: Step-by-Step

While it may seem complicated, playing spades card game is very simple. Here are the details on how to play spades card game in 5 simple steps.

Setup

Spades is usually played with four people split into two teams, with partners sitting across from each other.

You’ll need a standard 52-card deck.

The dealer shuffles and deals out all the cards one at a time, moving clockwise, until each player has 13 cards.

Once the cards are in hand, the bidding begins.

Bidding (Before Play Begins)

Before any cards hit the table, each player has to predict how many tricks they think they can win in that round.

Bidding starts with the player to the dealer’s left and goes around clockwise.

You can bid anywhere from 0 (called a "Nil," meaning you swear you won’t take a single trick) all the way up to 13.

There’s also something called a blind nil, where a player bids zero before even looking at their cards.

Once all bids are in, you add up the bids from each team.

That total becomes their target.

For example, if a player and their partner bid 2 and 4 respectively, their target is to win 6 tricks.

If they hit that total exactly, they score well. If they go over or under, things get messy, but we’ll cover scoring later.

Gameplay (Trick-Taking)

After the bids are locked in, the player to the dealer’s left starts the first trick by throwing down any card they want, except Spades.

Spades can’t be led until they’ve been "broken," meaning someone has to play one on a different suit first in case of not having cards of the ongoing suit.

A player can lead with spades only if they have nothing but Spades.

Once the first card is played, everyone else must follow suit if they can.

If they don’t have that suit, they can play any card they want, including Spades.

The highest card of the suit that was led wins the trick… unless a Spade gets thrown in.

Then, the highest Spade takes it all. The winner of the trick leads the next one, and this keeps going until all 13 tricks are done.

Scoring

Score of each trick is recorded in real-time and is totaled when 13 tricks (1 round) are done.

For every trick you bid, you get 10 points if you make it.

So if your team bid 5 and you win exactly 5 tricks after a round of 13 tricks, that’s 50 points.

But if you win more than you bid, those extra tricks are called "bags," and each one gives you a single extra point. So if your bid was 5 but you won 7 tricks, that’s 52 points.

Now, bags might seem like free points, but they come with a catch.

If your team racks up 10 bags across multiple rounds, you lose 100 points when the score of 13 tricks is being totaled.

So while going over your bid isn’t always bad, doing it too much will bite you. On the flip side, if your team doesn’t make the predicted bid, you lose 10 points for every trick you fall short.

So if you bid 4 but only win 3, that’s -40 points.

Then there’s the Nil bid. If a player says they’ll take zero tricks and actually pulls it off, their team gets a sweet 100-point bonus.

But if they mess up and take even one trick, it’s a 100-point penalty.

Some people play with a blind nil, where a player bids zero before seeing their cards. The bonus and penalty for making or not making a blind nil is 200 points.

Winning the Game

The whole point of the game is to be the first team to hit 500 points, or lower if both teams agree.

Alternatively, you can also agree to play a fixed number of rounds and the team with higher score in the end wins.

The rules for playing Spades don’t change. You just adjust the end goal.

Once a team crosses the agreed-upon score, they win. This will take multiple rounds of all the above steps.

If both teams hit 500 in the same round, the team with the higher score takes it. And if it’s somehow exactly tied? Well, that’s when you play one more round to settle it.

How to Keep Score in Spades

One player should be the official scorer and write down each team’s bid before the hand starts. That way, everyone knows what they’re aiming for, and there’s no arguing later.

The easiest way to track scores is with a simple table.

You’ll need three columns for each team: Bid, Tricks, and Bags. After each round, the scorer updates the table with how many tricks the team actually won, calculates the points, and keeps a running total.

Here’s how it looks after the first round:

In this example, Team A bid 5 and won 5 tricks, so they get 50 points. Team B bid 6 and hit 7, so they get 60 points and 1 bag.

By the time all 13 tricks are played, the table might look something like this:

So, according to this table, Team A's total score is (tricks score + bags) = 660 + 5 = 665

Team B's total score is (tricks score + bags) = 670 + 3 = 673

So as you can see, Team B's score is higher than Team A's. Therefore, Team B wins.

FAQs

How to play spades with 4 people?

Spades is best played with four people split into two teams of two. Partners sit across from each other, and the game follows standard Spades rules: bidding, trick-taking, and scoring.

If you want to play online, sites like Safe Harbor Games let you team up with real players, chat, and make friends while playing.

How to play a one man game of spades?

Solo Spades (or Cutthroat Spades) is played without teams i.e. every player competes individually. The rules stay mostly the same, but each player bids and scores independently. The first to reach a set score (usually lower than 500) wins.

How to play two player spades?

For two players spades, the deck is placed face down between both players. Each draws two cards at a time, then bids on how many tricks they’ll take. The game plays like regular Spades, with the first to 500 points winning.

Play Card Games via Scrambly and Win Cash

Now that you know how to play Spades card game, all that’s left is to grab some friends and start dealing.

But what if you could earn real money while playing?

With Scrambly, you can. Scrambly has a game on their platform called Spades Fever that lets you play competitively while racking up rewards just for hitting milestones.

Besides spades, Scrambly has over 150 games where you can earn cash, gift cards, or cashback just by playing.

Once you hit at least $1, you can cash out via PayPal or redeem for Amazon, Visa, and other gift cards. So why play for free when you could get paid for it?