Solitaire Cash Review [2024]: I Had Fun and Even Won (a Little)

What I learned from playing

• Solitaire Cash lets you compete against other players in cash tournaments, or play for free with gems.
• I won small amounts of money, but I didn’t turn a profit during my time playing Solitaire Cash. Despite that, the game is fun enough that I think it’s worth a try.
• True Solitaire masters could potentially win some impressive cash prizes, but any average player will be up against stiff competition.
• If you do win money playing the game, you can withdraw it via PayPal.
• To withdraw cash prizes, the game charges a $1 fee. Plus there’s a $5 minimum to withdraw funds.

Is Solitaire Cash legit?

Yes, I've played it and Solitaire Cash is a legit gaming app that pays real money. It’s a top card game app in the Apple App Store, with an average rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars from over 339,000 iOS users. The app was created by Papaya Gaming, which has over 37 million downloads of its apps worldwide.

What is Solitaire Cash?

Game	4.9 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.
Developer	Papaya Gaming
Compatible systems	iOS, Samsung
Minimum entry fee (for cash tournaments)	$1 (can be lower with promotional deals)
Minimum cash deposit	$5
Minimum withdrawal amount	$5
Withdrawal processing fee	$1
Withdrawal methods	PayPal (or as a refund to your original payment method)
States that prohibit cash tournaments	Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, South Carolina, Indiana, Maine, Montana
Game options	Cash tournaments Gem tournaments Clubs
	Download Solitaire Cash

If you’ve ever played the card game solitaire, then you’re already familiar with the basics of Solitaire Cash. In this app version, you get to play the same solitaire game you know and love, but you also get to compete against other people to see who can finish the game the fastest and score the most points.

The game setup looks like any other digital solitaire game, with seven piles of cards sorted into an ascending line, with only the top card visible in each stack.

The ultimate goal is to uncover all of the cards and move them, in order, up to the four stacks at the top of the board (starting with Ace cards), sorted by color and suit.

All of that is true of any solitaire game, but there are a few things that make Solitaire Cash different:

• The game is timed. You have five minutes to finish the game.
• You’re competing against other people for the highest score. You accrue points for stacking cards on top of each other, and for moving cards up to the foundations piles at the top.
• You win more points for finishing early. Solitaire Cash gives you a “time bonus” for finishing early. So the faster you finish the game, the more points you can score.

My gameplay experience with Solitaire Cash

I played Solitaire Cash for over two hours and tried both gems and cash tournaments. The game was easy to learn, thanks to a tutorial the app automatically takes you through when you first open it. And compared to other gaming apps, Solitaire Cash keeps it simple. You don’t have to remember a bunch of complicated boosters or extra rules — it’s pretty much just regular solitaire.

As with many gaming apps, the most annoying part of playing Solitaire Cash was all the promotional pop-ups that came up every time I opened the app. The app seemed to give more and more of these the longer I played, so I always had to be ready to exit out of five or more pop-up promotions before I could start the actual card game.

Other than that, Solitaire Cash was fun to play. It’s a nice way to relax, and the competitive element makes it even more engaging. Seeing my final results on the leaderboard definitely kept me coming back for more.

Tips for scoring points

You can win or lose points in a few different ways:

• +20 points for stacking cards in a way that reveals a new card, either by moving them down from the draw pile or shifting them sideways on the board
• +100-120 points for moving Aces or other cards up to the top stacks
• +100 points for moving any other card up to the top stacks
• -20 points for restarting the draw pile

Moving a card down from the top stacks, or pressing the undo button, will remove the amount of points you earned for the previous move on that card.

As a way to earn more points, you also get a time bonus for finishing the game before the clock runs out, so it’s best to get through the game as quickly as you can.

Not all solitaire games are winnable, and I discovered that ending the game as quickly as possible when you’re out of moves is better than waiting around hoping that a usable card will magically appear.

You lose 20 points every time you restart the draw pile, and you also don’t get the time bonus unless you finish early. Preserving the points you have, plus getting the time bonus, are the best available options when you encounter an unwinnable deck.

How much money can you make?

At the end of my testing time, I had accrued $5.30, plus 630 gems. I ended at a level 5 XP.

That might sound pretty good for just a couple of hours, but I deposited $5 to play in cash tournaments (plus paid $0.50 in sales tax, which might be a state-specific requirement), so I essentially broke even.

Considering that I enjoyed playing the game, I think Solitaire Cash was worth the money I paid to enter cash tourneys. But Solitaire Cash also makes it easy to play for free, so I could’ve kept playing even if I’d lost my entire cash balance. Along with the small amounts of bonus cash available in mini games, you can use gems to play for free.

If I had played the game for longer and improved my skills, maybe I would have come out on top with more cash winnings. For me, having real money at stake made the game more fun, which gives cash tournaments an edge over the free-to-play games.

Cash withdrawal process

Solitaire Cash offers withdrawal through PayPal, or as a refund to your original payment method.

At the end of my game time, I couldn’t withdraw any of my cash winnings from Solitaire Cash. Even though my ending balance was $5.30, I had only $2.50 left in actual money, which wasn’t enough to meet the $5 withdrawal limit. The rest of my balance came from bonus cash.

Bonus cash is a form of in-game currency, and Solitaire Cash frequently offers it as a supplement to your “real” money. You can use bonus cash to enter cash tournaments and play games, but you can’t withdraw it.

In my case, Solitaire Cash had given me $3.80 in total bonus cash from mini game rewards and as part of a promo when I deposited my initial $5, meaning I had a total of $8.80 to play with. I entered six cash tournaments with an average entry fee of $0.85 (lower than the typical $1 minimum, also due to promos), and I won only $1.40 from all five games.

What are other users saying?

User reviews for Solitaire Cash are generally positive. The app gets 4.6 out of 5 stars on the App Store, and 4.5 out of 5 on the Samsung Galaxy Store.

While I didn’t experience any hiccups while playing, such as the app freezing or slowing down mid-game, some other users have reported issues here and there.

For example, Reddit user Due-Seesaw9003 said, “I have played Solitaire Cash quite a bit. A problem I had, however, is the game froze where I couldn't move cards, yet the timer kept running. I had to abandon the game, and there is no way to report problems, other than going thru [sic] the app store … On the upside, in Solitaire Cash, there are no third-party ads.”

Payouts

Reddit user pacingpilot had this to say about payouts: “You … get small amounts of ‘bonus cash’ for free every few days if you log in daily. That cash cannot be withdrawn, only used in the game.

“If you've got the patience you can build up enough to play a small cash tournament every few weeks. I've done it and occasionally won a few bucks … Highest I got built up was like 20 bucks at one point.”

Gameplay tips

Reddit user Due-Seesaw9003 also had a couple of tips about gameplay: “If you keep playing games with only gems, then your progress will be pretty slow, but if you play some cash games, you can advance faster … if [the tournament winnings don’t] at least pay double my buy-in, then I look for another game.”

Alternatives to Solitaire Cash

The Solitaire Cash app isn’t for every gamer. Luckily, there are several other game apps that offer potential ways to earn some money on the side.

Solitaire Smash

This highly-rated app is available to iOS and Samsung Galaxy users and, along with Solitaire Cash, is on our list of the top 5 Solitaire games. The gameplay is straightforward and, like Solitaire Cash, there are a variety of cash tournaments you can enter. In my experience, this app had relatively low entry fees for its tournaments, so it's worth checking out even if you enjoy Solitaire Cash. 

Visit Solitaire Smash | Read our Solitaire Smash review

Bingo Cash

Like Solitaire Smash, Bingo Cash is available to Samsung Galaxy and iOS users. If you like more fast-paced play, this could be a good fit. The interface is easy to use, and the game is highly rated. It does have a bit of a learning curve, so I recommend playing with free gems or bonus cash to get the hang of things before entering a cash tournament. 

Visit Bingo Cash | Check out our Bingo Cash review

FAQ

Featured side hustles

Bottom line

Solitaire Cash is easy to learn (especially if you’re already familiar with solitaire), and the competition with other players makes it even more fun to play. If you’re really good at solitaire, then you might be able to dominate cash tournaments and win real money from prize pools, but don’t count on this game to be a major source of income — it’s mostly just for entertainment.

While I didn’t make any real money from playing Solitaire Cash, I didn’t lose money either — I pretty much broke even. If you like card games and cash competitions, then I think Solitaire Cash is a great gaming option.

Check out our list of the best side hustles to find other ways to make extra money.