Dominoes Gold Game Review [2024]: Sharpen Your Mental Math for Cash

Is Dominoes Gold legit?

Yes. Dominoes Gold is a legit money making game app that’s in the top 50 casino apps in the iOS App Store. It has over 29,000 ratings and an overall star rating of 4.7 out of 5. Dominoes Gold also has over 2,000 user reviews and an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars on the Galaxy Store.

Dominoes Gold is free to download and play, but you also have opportunities to win real cash by participating in the game’s real-money tournaments. You typically need to deposit some of your own money to participate in these modes. You technically can enter for free by watching an ad or earning enough in-game currency to cover the cost of an entry fee, but depositing your own money is the fastest method.

If you don’t want to deposit any of your own money, then you can play the game’s practice modes for free using the Skillz in-game currency, which is called Z and looks like little coins.

What is Dominoes Gold?

Game	4.8 FinanceBuzz writers and editors score products and companies on a number of objective features as well as our expert editorial assessment. Our partners do not influence our ratings.
Platform	Skillz
Compatible systems	iOS, Samsung
Types of in-game currency	Z coins Ticketz Bonus cash
Minimum entry fee (for cash tournaments)	$0.60
Minimum cash deposit	$5
Minimum withdrawal amount	$0
Withdrawal fee	$1.50 for withdrawal amounts under $10
Withdrawal methods	Mailed check for U.S. players (or as a refund to your original payment method)
States that prohibit cash tournaments	Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Louisiana, South Dakota
Game modes	Practice (free) Head-to-head
	Download Dominoes Gold

Dominoes Gold is a twist on the classic dominoes game. If you’ve played traditional dominoes in the past, then Dominoes Gold will be mostly the same, but with a few points of adjustment. Most importantly, to score points, the ends of the domino tiles on the board have to add up to a multiple of five, so the game requires some innate strategy if you want to have a chance of winning against your opponent.

Here are the basic rules for playing Dominoes Gold:

• Match the ends of dominoes. Apart from the initial domino, you can only place a domino next to an end domino with a matching number. For example, you can place a six next to a six or a five next to a five.
• Create a multiple of five. To score points, the ends of the board need to be a multiple of five. This could include five, 10, 15, 20, etc. You receive points equal to the multiple of five you’ve created. If the ends of the board add up to 15, you would receive 15 points.
• Draw from the boneyard. If you still have tiles in your hand but nowhere to place them, you have to draw tiles from your boneyard pile until you have a tile to place.
• Get a Domino! You get “Domino!” if you use all the tiles in your hand before your opponent. This allows you to take points from your opponent if they have eligible tiles still in their hand. You also get to start the next round.
• Get bonus points: A Dominoes Gold match typically lasts seven minutes. The match ends if the time runs out or someone reaches the required score, which is typically 100, first. If you still have time left when the match finishes, you can receive a time bonus for your final score. You could also receive extra points based on the difference between your and your opponent’s scores.

The opponent is another interesting aspect of this mobile game. The actual dominoes game you play in the app is actually against a computer. I know, this seems like it goes against Skillz’s commitment to no bots or AI. But while you’re playing the game against a computer, you’re playing the tournament against a human.

Your fellow human is also playing a computer, and whoever gets the highest score against the computer wins. So even if you lose to the computer, you could still win the match against the human player. As long as you scored more points than they did, you can claim the prize.

There are a couple of different game modes available in Dominoes Gold. Game modes have entry fees of either Z coins (the in-game currency) or your cash balance. Z coins are typically easy to earn and allow you to play practice games where you can earn more Z coins, ticketz, and medals.

My gameplay experience with Dominoes Gold

I love simple mobile gaming apps and I’ve played quite a few of them, but I found Dominoes Gold tricky to learn. This is likely because I’m not great at mental addition, so the requirement to end the board in multiples of five was a big ask for me.

You not only have to figure out which tiles to play, but also how they’re going to twist during play so that the number that ends up at the tip (which is not the number you’re matching to an existing domino on the board), makes the overall sum of all the ends of the board a multiple of five.

Because of the mental math involved, I found this game to have a much higher learning curve than my other favorites, such as Solitaire Clash, Bubble Cash, and Blackout Bingo.

If, unlike me, you’re good at this type of spatial reasoning and mental math, then you might find Dominoes Gold relaxing to play. A lot of other gaming apps offer cash games that involve multiple other players — anywhere from five other people to an unlimited number of players in the pool.

But Dominoes Gold gives you only one human opponent to worry about (and beat). So that might make this game feel easier to win than those with bigger player pools.

Dominoes Gold runs on the Skillz platform. Skillz is a mobile games platform that helps connect a worldwide group of players through gaming competitions. Through Skillz, Dominoes Gold is able to provide its players with cash tournaments and the opportunity to win real-world prizes.

Overall, Skillz has hosted billions of tournaments and provided its players with millions in prizes.

How to score points and play to win money

You score points in Dominoes Gold by laying down domino tiles in a way that makes the ends of the board add up to a multiple of five.

To participate in cash modes, you have to have an available cash balance. You can add to your cash balance by depositing your own money or by earning bonus cash. You can typically earn bonus cash by referring friends to play the game and by redeeming ticketz in the Skillz Rewards store.

Here are some of the competitive dominoes tournament modes available in Dominoes Gold:

• Practice: Use Z coins to compete against another player for prizes, including Z coins, ticketz, and Leagues medals.
• Head-to-head: Use your cash balance to compete against another player for prizes, including cash, ticketz, and Leagues medals.
• Brackets: Use your cash balance to compete against multiple other players for prizes, including cash, ticketz, and Leagues medals.
• Real-time matches: Choose your stakes (Z coins or cash) to compete against another player in a live match for prizes, including Z coins or cash.
• Events: Use your cash balance to compete against other players for a piece of a prize pool, which often includes cash and ticketz. Events are typically timed and often have no player limit.

After you’ve completed a sufficient number of games, usually around three, you’re automatically included in the Leagues rankings. This places you into Pro or Practice categories (or both) depending on the types of game modes you play. Each set of Leagues rankings offers a prize pool for the highest-ranked participants — Z coins for Practice players and cash for Pro players.

To improve your Leagues ranking(s), you need to earn medals by winning applicable game modes. The more medals you earn, the more you can improve your ranking and the better your chances of winning prizes.

Leagues rankings are reset regularly, and everyone gets a new opportunity to compete against each other. Prize pools could vary, but it’s not unheard of for the first-placed Pro player to win more than $2,000 and the first-placed Practice player to earn over 1,000 Z coins.

How much money can you make?

The longer you play Dominoes Gold, the more cash tournaments you’ll gain access to. The overall prizes you can try and win are pretty low when you first start out — for example, the highest prize pool I saw at a rookie level was $8 where the winner would get $6.

The higher the prize pool, the higher the entry fee. The $8 tournament I saw had an entry fee of $3, so your net profit (assuming you won) would be only $3. I generally don’t recommend higher prize pools anyway, because they make it easy to lose large amounts of cash.

Even if you do play and win matches with higher prize pools, a competitive dominoes game isn’t likely to replace your primary income. But it could offer opportunities to earn money on the side if you’re good enough. Events can have prize pools of $1,000 or more, and the Leagues competition has had prize pools of tens of thousands of dollars. But keep in mind that there’s no guarantee you’ll win anything.

How to enter cash games

To start trying to win money, you typically have to deposit some of your own cash to participate in the cash modes. If you’d rather not deposit any money into the game, your only option is to play using Z coins. Game modes that take Z coins don’t offer any cash prizes, but you can earn ticketz that can be redeemed for bonus cash and other prizes. But earning enough ticketz for some bonus cash could take a while.

It takes 20,000 ticketz for $1 of bonus cash. The time limit on a practice game is seven minutes and you’ll earn one ticket whether you win or lose. If your average game length is only five minutes, that’s still 20,000 games you’d have to play, which equates to 100,000 minutes (over 1,600 hours).

You might be able to play quicker games, but the process could still seem too long — especially when you compare it with depositing some cash and immediately gaining access to the cash modes.

You typically need at least 60 cents in your cash balance to participate in the least expensive cash mode, and you’d be competing for a prize of $1. That sounds low, but for these types of money games, I think that’s a good prize to strive for.

Cash withdrawal process

You can’t withdraw any bonus cash you earn, since it’s actually an in-game currency. But you can withdraw any real money you’ve deposited or won from playing cash modes. For most Skillz games, cashing out is typically as simple as selecting “Withdraw” from the main menu.

Any money you’ve deposited will be returned to you by the original deposit method, including a credit card or PayPal. Any additional earnings will be sent by a mailed check if you’re in the U.S. or by PayPal if you live elsewhere.

Paper check is definitely an outdated way to receive winnings. Other gaming apps from platforms like Papaya and Avia offer cashout withdrawals via PayPal (even for U.S. players). I’m guessing Skillz uses this as a strategy to encourage players to keep their money in the game.

Alternative cash game apps

If Dominoes Gold doesn’t seem like the right app for learning how to make money in your free time, consider games such as Blackout Bingo and Solitaire Cash.

Blackout Bingo

Blackout Bingo is a fast-paced bingo game you can play on your compatible phone or tablet. Similar to classic bingo, you need to quickly find corresponding numbers on your board to increase your score. But it’s not all about luck — the quicker and more accurate you are, the more you can score and the better your chances of winning real prizes, including cash. 

Check out our Blackout Bingo review for more details.

Solitaire Cash

If you prefer classic card games, Solitaire Cash could be a good fit for you. This Solitaire game pits you against other players with the same skill level and the same deck, so you know it’s a fair test of your skills. You could also earn cash prizes for winning your games. 

Read our Solitaire Cash review for more information.

FAQ about Dominoes Gold

Bottom line

Dominoes Gold is a fun opportunity for skilled dominoes players to monetize their abilities through competitive cash tournaments and prize pools. While I like the classic dominoes experience on mobile, the need to deposit your own money to play cash game modes might deter casual players.

If you don't want to play real-money games, or if you don't have a compatible iOS or Android device, then you may want to explore other gaming apps. Overall, Dominoes Gold is a great choice for anyone seeking a fun, potentially lucrative mobile gaming experience centered around dominoes.