November 4, 2024
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Experts in this article:
Sophia is a software QA Tester and web developer with experience testing multiple survey and task apps. She has two years of...
Jessica is a writer for SideHustles.com. Her side hustles include freelance academic writing and editing, which she's done for...
Solitaire Clash is a gaming app that you can use to play the traditional card game of solitaire and win real cash—at least in theory.
The app promises “endless fun” and “a truly immersive gaming experience,” but can you really win money from it?
We sent our tester to find out.
Solitaire Clash is an app from Avia that’s available on the mobile gaming platform Pocket7Games. It’s based on solitaire, the ever-popular card game for people who prefer their own company, and it’s available for both iOS and Android devices.
As of August 2024, Solitaire Clash has a rating of 4.8 on the App Store and 240,136 reviews. On the Samsung Galaxy store, it has a rating of 5 stars and 23,601 reviews.
Having tested Solitaire Clash, we can say pretty confidently that the app is “legit” in the sense that it features real games and you can really withdraw money from it … if you win enough games.
The question is whether it’s practical to win often enough to actually make money, which we didn’t succeed in doing. (This was in contrast to our experience on another Avia and Pocket7Games app, Bingo Clash, which you can read about in our Bingo Clash review.)
Unfortunately, the makers of Solitaire Clash, Avia, have a rather dubious reputation. They’ve been caught up in multiple lawsuits accusing them of rigging games, using bots, and more.
One lawsuit, which is still ongoing, accuses Avia of using bots in their games instead of pitting users against real opponents (as they advertise). 1
Although we can’t say for sure whether there’s any truth to the allegations against Avia, we’re not confident enough in the company to recommend their games. Avia might not be completely trustworthy, and when you compete in their games for money, you might not be playing on a level field.
Yes, Solitaire Clash really pays—if you can win enough games to make a profit, that is. The problem with this app is that you can easily wind up losing money on it instead of making it.
The amount you can earn on Solitaire Clash entirely depends on how successful you are when you play.
Again, although you can theoretically make money, there’s a good chance you’ll operate at a loss rather than a profit.
Yes, you can easily lose money when you play Solitaire Clash. This is what happened to us.
In total, we spent about 2¼ hours using the app, and we invested $5 (money we deposited to pay the entry fees required to play games). In the end, we walked away with a balance of just $1.40. This wasn’t enough for us to withdraw—the app has a minimum threshold to do that—so, in practice, we ended up empty-handed, meaning that we lost $5 overall.
Our experience was bad enough that we don’t recommend investing your own money to enter tournaments on Solitaire Clash.
Solitaire Clash offers free features, and if you limit yourself to using those, you don’t have to spend any money on the app.
However, it’s designed to entice you into spending money, and you’ll need to exercise a fair amount of willpower if you don’t want to get sucked into risking your own cash.
The catch with Solitaire Clash, as you may be gathering, is that the app is designed to encourage gambling. There are many special offers and other incentives to encourage you to enter cash games, and doing this usually means spending money.
In theory, you can collect free in-app credits and use these to enter tournaments. However, you may be tempted to speed things up by forking out your own money for entry fees, which isn’t a good idea.
The rules for Solitaire Clash tournaments are much the same as the rules for normal solitaire (which is also called klondike).
However, this is a multiplayer version of what’s usually a single-player game, so the aim is to get a higher score than the other players in your tournament. Tournaments usually have 6–10 players.
You’ll start each new game of Solitaire Clash with a deck of cards organized similarly to the one below.
The aim is to get all of the cards from the deck into separate piles for each suite (marked with “A” in the screenshot above) and stacked in ascending order, starting with aces at the bottom, followed by 2s, then 3s, and so on.
To get all of the cards into the correct piles, you’ll need to turn over the ones from the face-down pile at the top right and move them around the game. The version of solitaire used in Solitaire Clash is sometimes called “three-card draw.” In this version of the game, you turn over three cards at a time, as shown below.
You’ll also need to turn over the face-down cards in the stacks shown below. Again, you’ll have to displace the face-up cards at the top of these stacks before you can move the cards underneath.
You can move cards around the game (as long as they’re face up and at the top of a stack) by organizing them as shown in the screenshot below. You must order cards such that:
Solitaire Clash may occasionally offer solitaire games with rules that differ slightly from those we’ve described. For instance, we played one game that started with preset cards (meaning the game was already partially completed).
Solitaire Clash games usually last for 5 minutes.
However, if you solve the deck—meaning that you’ve turned over all of the cards and can move them to the four piles at the top of the screen—the game will end before the time limit.
The system for credits on Solitaire Clash is unnecessarily complicated. There are many different types with different functions.
The most valuable type of credit is called “Bonus Cash.” You can earn this from completing in-app tasks and use it to enter Solitaire Clash tournaments with cash prizes (you can also pay the entry fees for these with real cash).
“Gems” are another type of in-app credit. You can use these to pay the entry fees for some games, although these are more likely to have prizes of Bonus Cash or yet more Gems (neither of which you can withdraw from the app) than real cash.
Just to make matters a little more confusing, there are many other types of credits you can earn that may help you to earn Bonus Cash or Gems. For example, we earned “tickets” that presumably would have allowed us to access other features in the Solitaire Clash app and win more Bonus Cash or Gems (although we couldn’t actually find those features).
We also saw still more types of tokens and coins that were required to use features we’ll talk about later on.
To win money from Solitaire Clash, you have to enter cash tournaments. In these, you compete against other players (usually 6 to 10, as mentioned) for shares of a prize pool.
Some tournaments have prizes of in-app credits; others have real cash prizes. In general, the bigger the prizes a tournament offers, the greater the fees you’ll pay to enter are.
When we tested Solitaire Clash, we saw prize pools ranging from $0.60 to $195.
We entered more than a dozen tournaments, most of them with low stakes, as we weren’t feeling brave enough to gamble all our money. Some of the games we played had Gem-only entry fees and prizes comprising only Gems or Bonus Cash (with no real cash up for grabs).
However, we were more interested in games with cash prizes. Here’s what happened in those:
| Entry fee | Prize pool | Number of players | Our ranking | Our winnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $1 | 7 | 1st | $0.50 |
| Free | $1 | 7 | 1st | $0.50 |
| 50 Gems | $0.60 | 10 | 1st | $0.30 |
| 50 Gems | $0.60 | 10 | 1st | $0.30 |
| $1 | $4 | 5 | 5th | $0 |
| $1 | $5 | 7 | 4th | $0 |
| $1 | $5 | 7 | 2nd | $1.50 |
| $3 | $12 | 6 | 2nd | $2.65 |
| $3 | $12 (and $24 in Bonus Cash) | 6 | 3rd | $1.50 |
| $3 | $12 (and $24 in Bonus Cash) | 6 | 2nd | $3.80 |
| $3 | $14 | 6 | 5th | $0 |
| $5 | $30 | 8 | 8th | $0 |
When you first sign in to Solitaire Clash, you might see special offers offering you free games (presumably in the hope that you’ll be encouraged to keep playing). This is great while it lasts, but the freebies will probably dry up once you’ve been using the app for a while, so be prepared for that.
To reiterate, we spent about 2¼ hours in total playing Solitaire Clash (getting the hang of the app and then playing games to win either cash or credits we could use to enter more cash games), and we invested $5 of our own money. By the end of testing, we had just $1.40, which wasn’t enough to withdraw, so we were effectively left with nothing.
As we’ve mentioned, cash tournaments are the only way to earn money directly on Solitaire Clash.
However, there are also ways to earn in-app credits you can then use to enter cash games (or to enter games offering prizes of other credits that you can then use to enter cash games—as you’re probably gathering, the way this app works is more than a little roundabout if you decide not to deposit real money).
You can earn credits in the following ways:
One easy task that gives you rewards on Solitaire Clash is simply signing in to the app. Each time you sign in on a different day, you’ll see a selection of prizes like the ones below.
However, you won’t be able to use the feature immediately. You’ll have to play a few games first.
Our Daily Bonus feature was unlocked after we played five games. We used it to collect rewards on four occasions, and we got 80–100 Gems each time for doing this.
If you click on the “Rewards” tab in the Solitaire Clash app, you’ll see various games and tasks offering ways to earn rewards.
Some of these games and tasks may require you to make payments; others will give you legitimate freebies.
You may earn Bonus Cash, Gems, or another type of credit.
For example, the feature called “Gold Miner” shown above allows you to earn rewards by inviting friends to join Solitaire Clash.
Another task you’ll likely see in the “Rewards” tab is the Lucky Wheel. As you might expect, this is a wheel you spin to get free rewards, including Gems and Bonus Cash.
We visited the “Rewards” tab on Solitaire Clash multiple times.
We used the Lucky Wheel feature four times, which usually won us only Gems, although we once won $0.05 in Bonus Cash.
We also found a game called Bounty Bash, which we played once. This gave us 30 Gems—not exactly a windfall, but welcome nonetheless.
On top of the bonus tasks and games you can find in the “Rewards” tab, there may also sometimes be other ways to earn between Solitaire Clash tournaments. Once again, these tasks might yield prizes of Bonus Cash, Gems, or other in-app credits.
Some of these other tasks and games are unlocked when you level up (as described in the next section). However, you may also sometimes be offered bonus tasks after you sign in or at other points while you’re using the app.
We completed many bonus tasks and games while we were testing Solitaire Clash, and some of these gave us decent rewards.
For example, we partially completed a task called the “Starter Quest” shown below. This gave us extra Gems just for logging in to the app as well as for depositing money, with more rewards available for playing games.
We also saw a task called “Mission Madness,” shown in the screenshot below, which gave us another type of token. However, we’re not sure what purpose these were meant to serve; we never found a use for them.
Not all of these tasks will be available to you if you avoid depositing money on the app. However, there were some tasks we saw that can be completed for free. We’d recommend sticking to these when you use Solitaire Clash.
When you use Solitaire Clash, you’ll get “XP” for entering tournaments. We couldn’t find anything in the app that specified what XP meant, but other gaming apps use this abbreviation to mean “experience points,” and it’s likely the same for Solitaire Clash.
When you get enough XP, you’ll level up. This gives you rewards, including Gems and Bonus Cash. It sometimes also unlocks features that offer yet more earning opportunities.
Solitaire Clash recommends playing more cash games to level up faster. However, we would caution against getting sucked into playing more cash games if you haven’t accumulated enough Bonus Cash (or Gems) to cover the entry fees. Our experience suggests you’re unlikely to come out ahead.
Most of the time, when we leveled up on Solitaire Clash, we got Gems as a reward.
The highest level we reached was level 8, and this gave us 30 Gems plus $0.10 in Bonus Cash.
Solitaire Clash may occasionally give you “surprise gifts” or rewards for no particular reason while you’re using it. The more you use the app, the better your chances will be of getting free rewards like the ones we received.
Solitaire Clash gave us a “surprise gift” of $2 Bonus Cash for no obvious reason on one occasion. We were, indeed, surprised.
Many apps like Solitaire Clash share promo codes that you can enter to get freebies. You can often find these on the company’s social media accounts, or you may receive them via email or push notification.
There’s a place where you can enter promo codes on the Solitaire Clash app—if you can find codes to use. If you get lucky, you can redeem them by going to the main menu and then selecting “Enter Code.”
We looked for Solitaire Clash promo codes several times on Pocket7Games’s social media (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) and in our email. However, we didn’t find anything.
To start playing Solitaire Clash, you need to download the app to your phone or another mobile device.
You can get Solitaire Clash on the Pocket7Games website, which has links to the App Store and the Samsung Galaxy store for iOS devices and Samsung Galaxy Android devices, respectively. It also features a download for non–Samsung Galaxy Android devices.
Alternatively, you can use the links below to go directly to the App Store or the Samsung Galaxy store. (But not to Google Play—apps with a gambling component are banned from Google’s store, even when they claim to be mostly skill-based.)
As we’ve mentioned, we recommend avoiding spending real money on Solitaire Clash, as there’s a good chance you won’t make it back. However, if you’re set on doing that, the app gives you the following payment methods:
Solitaire Clash lets you deposit money in various denominations; the smallest amount is usually $5. Notably, larger denominations often come with freebies designed to entice you into spending more.
You’ll sometimes get special offers like the one in the screenshot below, which sometimes allow you to deposit amounts under $5.
When you withdraw money from Solitaire Clash, the method you can use will depend on how much you previously deposited into the app, the method you used to pay, and the amount you’ve won.
According to the Solitaire Clash FAQ, if you’ve spent money on the app, you will probably get your withdrawal via the same method you used to make your deposit (i.e., Visa, PayPal, Venmo, or Apple Pay).
According to the Solitaire Clash help pages, the timeframe to process withdrawals from the app is 1–15 days. However, they say you’ll normally get your money within seven days.
We didn’t attempt a withdrawal from Solitaire Clash, as we didn’t have a large enough balance by the time we finished testing, so we can’t provide our own insights on the timeframes involved.
Solitaire Clash charges fees on some withdrawals. You’ll pay a fee of $1 if you withdraw less than $10.
There’s also sometimes a “service fee” or “withdrawal tax.” This applies if you withdraw unspent money from a deposit that you used less than 50% of. This fee is equivalent to 15%. 2
For example, if you deposited $30 and used only $5 of your balance to play games on Solitaire Clash, you’ll pay a hefty 15% fee when you withdraw the remaining $25.
The minimum amount you can withdraw on Solitaire Clash is $2.
Yes, there are also several other considerations to bear in mind when you withdraw money from Solitaire Clash. One is that you can only withdraw whole-dollar amounts.
Another is that you forfeit your Bonus Cash whenever you withdraw. This feature is common with gaming apps like Solitaire Clash, but it’s still very bothersome, as it disincentivizes cashing out your winnings.
You should also be aware that the balance you usually see at the top of your screen isn’t necessarily all “real” money. Some of your balance may comprise Bonus Cash, which is not withdrawable and can only be used in the app.
You can’t play Solitaire Clash if you’re under 18 years old.
Beyond that, anyone can play, but not everyone can play for cash. Some states have banned gambling, and if you live in one, Solitaire Clash won’t allow you to enter games with cash prizes.
These states include: 3
Cash games are also unavailable in Puerto Rico.
If you like the idea of playing cards or other types of games to make money, you might want to check out these alternatives to Solitaire Clash:
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