64Spades - Expert Reviewers Recommend Deposit or Run!?

We waited patiently...but we never got a response from support.

64Spades Financial Insolvency?

It appears that customers were freerolling the site – losing their money and then disputing the transactions with PayPal/Venmo. We don't see how the managers of the site didn't take this possibility into account when adding support for these two payment channels. We knew that transacting via PayPal was trouble for any U.S.-facing online gambling enterprise, and events have proven us right.

Remember that the old Full Tilt Poker, before it was purchased by PokerStars, also had issues with users betting money that they actually were not good for, and this was one of the reasons for its ultimate failure. If the same type of deceit is happening at 64Spades, then we don't forecast a rosy future for the site particularly in light of the fact that it's much smaller than FTP was, and also it would be unlikely to attract a bailout from any organization of the caliber of PokerStars or any other large, reputable, legitimate online poker company.

Margins must be very thin at a site of the size and newness of 64Spades. We wouldn't be surprised if these fraudulent transactions turn out to be a death blow from which the room cannot recover. Though we hope that this isn't the case, we're realists first and foremost.

Spath's statement indicates that PayPal won't be coming back as a cashier method, which is probably a blessing in disguise. Until credit cards and Venmo return, Bitcoin is the only way to get money on to and off of the site for U.S. residents.

UPDATE February 10, 2019: Cashier Not Working

It seems that there has been a problem with the 64Spades cashier, and users can neither deposit funds nor cash them out. This situation has been going on for about a month now, and there doesn't appear to be any resolution in sight.

When we go to our cashier to make a deposit, our web browser opens up with an error message:

A quick look at the 64spades.com Facebook page confirms that others are experiencing the same, and we aren't just suffering from a weird, isolated technical error:

Therefore, the only realistic way for users to obtain chips at 64spades or trade their balances for real money is by engaging in peer-to-peer exchanges. Incredibly, company reps are claiming that this is “amazing” and an indication of a supportive poker community!

Besides exposing their customers to the risks inherent in making trades with unknown internet dwellers, the fact that real money transactions can no longer occur onsite is a worrisome development. We're left baffled as to how an online poker room can survive while its cashier remains continuously unserviceable. Some have reported not getting their withdrawals for months, dating to even before the recent cashier woes. Check out what one dismayed 64Spades player had to say in November 2018:

UPDATE: Sept. 28, 2019 - P2P Trades Lead to Woe

We knew that asking users to conduct trades amongst themselves in lieu of operating an actual, functioning cashier would come back to cause problems later on. We've now gotten word that some of these traders are engaging in shady behavior, and others who have merely done business with them are suffering from the fallout.

As could have been predicted, affiliates and/or agents have played an increasing role in handling cash just like they do at several mobile poker clubs. And, just as NYPokerKing apparently did at PPPoker, these agents sometimes attempt to repossess user funds for themselves.

In one instance that was brought to our attention, a player had their cashout denied by 64Spades. After inquiring why, this customer was told that he had bought chips from an affiliate that had originally been associated with a user that wound up doing a chargeback against the card room.

This is a very convoluted series of events, and we're not sure that we understand it fully ourselves. What it appears to boil down to is that if you have ever bought or sold chips with another player, then you're basically responsible for their integrity and the honesty of everyone they have ever done business with too. That's one hell of a vouch you're effectively making whenever you transact in the peer-to-peer market for 64spades chips.

Desperate to avoid trouble, concerned individuals even maintain private blacklists in Facebook groups for 64spades players. This is the only way they can ensure the safety of their funds now that the poker site has abandoned its traditional responsibility of providing for the financial security of users' money.

The fact that site management actively encouraged players to conduct such trading makes this entire situation even more surreal.

UPDATE: December 20, 2019: Owner Confirms Insufficient Funds?

Individual users continue to employ private trades as the preferred mechanism for making deposits and withdrawals at 64Spades. We've recently seen reports that chips are being exchanged for real money at a 2:1 ratio – that is, for every $100 in 64Spades chips you sell, you only get $50 in cash! Such a high “vig” is indicative of a loss of confidence in the site among users. Although the 64Spades trading vig has not yet reached the abysmal levels attained in the past by, for example, Lock Poker, the general trend doesn't appear to be going in the right direction.

Even more worrisome, perhaps, than the market values established among the room's players are the statements and actions of site management. One of our readers was kind enough to share the following message that was sent by one of 64Spades' owners, Darrell Smith:

The above statement appears to indicate that 64Spades uses newly deposited money to pay out past withdrawal obligations. This is not the way any legitimate site conducts itself, and it's a huge red flag indicative of some type of pyramid scheme. As if this weren't bad enough, we've encountered numerous reports of players having to wait lengthy periods for their payouts without adequate explanations from site staff.

Darrell Smith has stated numerous times on Facebook that he's focusing on his “live business,” and many people have observed him playing poker at The Legion Poker Club in Houston. Even as the 64Spades cashier functions are in disarray and users grumble about the time it takes to receive payments, Smith's attention is diverted elsewhere, and he is neglecting his online poker room.

The periodic failure of 64spades to maintain functional ways of funding accounts and requesting payouts only confirms our suspicions that the long-term viability of the site is questionable at best. It may prove prudent to select another place to play online poker instead.

     

The software running at 64Spades was produced by Enterra. This is a niche gaming application provider that sets up white-label sites for customers. There actually is an Enterra Poker Network, and skins have the option to join it or remain standalone. The management of 64Spades has opted for this latter option, so its traffic isn't shared with any other operator.

Of course another possibility is that 64Spades wanted to join the network, but could not. Given that they are utilizing payment methods that are not exactly allowed for online gambling transactions, it could be that Enterra simply did not want to burden the risk of adding a brand new, unestablished, unknown poker room with shady payment practices to their poker network.

64Spades provides download poker installers for Windows, iOS, and Android. In addition, there's an HTML5 app that you can log into with virtually every modern web browser.

Games and Functionality

The selection of games supported is excellent, and we haven't seen such a wide variety at any other site besides SwCPoker. There's Hold'em, Omaha and variants like Courchevel and 5 Card Omaha, Seven Card Stud games, Lowball (including 2-7 TDL and Badugi), and Chinese Poker. These are available in many distinct blind levels, table sizes, and betting structures.

Unusually, there are two formats that are displayed within the software but not enabled: fast-fold poker, called “Rapid,” and lottery SNGs, which are shown as “Spins.” Given the presence of quite a few rarely played game varieties, we're surprised that these two popular formats are missing.

We're pretty impressed by the ambitious nature of this online poker software project. It's even possible to create private, password-protected tables.

Nevertheless, there are a few minor glitches and problems that detract from the usability of this poker solution. For instance, we received the following error multiple times when choosing to muck our hand at showdown:

There are odd interface choices, like the fact that there's both a graphical hand replayer and a text-based hand history viewer but no way to switch between them. If you're looking at a hand history and wish to view a replay of the action, you must close the textual hand history tool and open up the graphical one.

As far as we know, there are no tracking or HUD packages that work with 64Spades.

Speaking of hand histories, you may have plans of importing them into your tracking program. If you attempt to do so, you'll be disappointed. As far as we know, there are no tracking or HUD packages that work with 64Spades. Neither Poker Tracker nor Hold'em Manager provide support for Enterra software or 64Spades.

64Spades Lobby

The lobby shows just about what you would expect: game categories that you can select with subcategories for finer control and a listing of all matching games in the center of the screen. The menu at the top lets you adjust your display, gameplay, and language settings. It's possible to sort the games listed by clicking on any of the stat columns. There's also a filtering tool, but it's somewhat limited, and there are only a few criteria that you can filter by.

Overall, the software is better than we would expect from a small development house like Enterra but nowhere near as good as the top internet poker sites.

UPDATE Oct. 31, 2018: Short Deck Hold'em Added

After much anticipation, 64Spades updated its software to add Short Deck Hold'em, also known as 6+ Hold'em, to its game selection. This is a type of Texas Hold'em where all cards lower than a 6 are removed from the deck. This alters the probabilities and adjusts the hand rankings such that a flush is better than a full house, and a set beats a straight. Short Deck was added both for cash games and tournaments.

The Short Deck Hold'em Tab in the 64Spades Cash Game Lobby

Unfortunately, many players were unable to try out Short Deck Hold'em, at least not right away. This is because the Oct. 30 afternoon update,  which enabled support for mixed games as well as 6+, triggered server problems that left users unable to log in and access the games. Several of them were in the middle of tournaments at the time.

As the afternoon faded into the evening, these issues were still unresolved. 64Spades representatives were unable to advise players on whether the affected MTTs were paused and would be resumed once the hardware issues were resolved or whether they would be cancelled and buyins refunded. Thus, many were left uncertain as to their best course of action: wait patiently by their computers for the resumption of normal service or abandon their tourneys and go do something else. Typical were the sentiments of Facebook user Debbie Cookie Furniss:

Ultimately, it took until the next morning for the site to be up and running again. In the interim, customers were left confused and disappointed.

64Spades Cash Games

Like we mentioned before, there are dozens of types of poker offered by 64Spades. This may be overkill, however, because there are only a few of them that see much action. During peak hours, which are U.S. evening times, there are up to 10 tables active. They're usually split up between NL Hold'em, PL Omaha, and Open Face Chinese Poker.

The paucity of NLHE and PLO traffic may make this room only worthwhile as a backup or secondary poker destination. Yet the presence of a couple of tables of OFC Poker simultaneously active may intrigue those who appreciate this variant because most other sites for U.S.A. internet poker don't spread it.

Open Face Chinese Pineapple Table at 64Spades

As a poker room that does the majority of its marketing and advertising through social media and word of mouth, 64Spades attracts a casual crowd. While you will encounter the occasional pro, the bulk of the player population is comprised of recreational users. Thus, what games do run tend to be very soft.

The blind levels present for Hold'em go from $0.04/$0.08 to $100/$200, and for Omaha, they range from $0.04/$0.08 to $10/$20. Weirdly, there's a $0.05/$0.10 stake available, which seems redundant when we consider that $0.04/$0.08 is also present. Chinese Poker goes from $0.05 to $10 per point.

The most popular stakes in the big-bet games are $0.10/$0.20 and $0.25/$0.50. For Chinese Poker, values of less than $1 a point appear to be the most common.

The tables are split up into those that allow straddles, those that qualify (allegedly) for the bad beat jackpot, those that permit running it twice, slow tables, et cetera. Furthermore, there are many table sizes: 9-handed, 8-max, 6-players, heads-up, and a few more. We believe that this massive selection is not needed and is confusing to newcomers. Most of these extraneous tables could be killed without any adverse effects.

One nice touch is that the allowed buyins are from 35bb - 150bb in NLHE and 40bb - 200bb for PLO. This is a bit deeper than you would usually encounter, and it makes for more post-flop excitement.

No Limit Texas Hold'em Cash Game Table at 64Spades

There is play money, called “64Gold.” All new users and players on the site will receive / start with 640 of these in their account. However, there's rarely anyone seated at the 64Gold tables. Evidently there is even less play money action than real money games on this site.

64Spades Sit & Gos

SNGs run from $1 + $0.05 up to $200 + $10. There are NL Hold'em, PL Omaha, and PL Omaha/8 games. Remarkably, the 5% fee structure is consistent across the entire spectrum of buyins, making this a great deal for any sit-n-go player. Unusually, nine-handed sit n' goes only pay out the top two finishers as opposed to the normal three.

We would have liked to sample the sit-and-go games at 64Spades, but we were not able to. The player volume just isn't there. It's not uncommon to open up the Sit & Go tab and see exactly 0 people registered in games.

64Spades Multi-Table Tournaments

The MTTs consist largely of freerolls with no more than $20 up for grabs and several dozen entrants. Most of the rest of the schedule is micro-stakes games that typically garner no more than about 25 participants. The largest weekly tourney is called “Any Given Sunday.” It costs $36 + $4 to join, and it distributes $4,000 in guaranteed prizes.

Tournament Lobby at 64Spades

Every once in a while, there are bigger, one-off tournaments as well as MTT series. These special occasions typically have larger prize pools and buyins than the normal, everyday events.

Our thoughts on 64Spades are mixed because there are a few appealing aspects to it; yet, there are plenty of problematic issues as well. We scoured the internet to see what others had to say, and we found that comments about this internet poker room were both positive and negative as well.

Though there are features that some users will appreciate, like the Open Face Chinese games and soft tables, we advise our readers to take a pass on 64Spades at this time. PayPal acceptance is a ticking time bomb that could go off unpredictably, and the entire cashier setup is confusing and non-intuitive. Low traffic numbers, poor or nonexistent customer support, and a website that seems like it was thrown together in a couple of afternoons combine to paint the picture of a site that, if not outright shady, is definitely poorly managed.

It may be possible for 64Spades to get its act together at some point. Until that time, however, the safest course is to find an alternate online poker room and avoid 64Spades. Our page about USA online poker lists better and more reputable sites that you can play at along with facts about internet poker legality, the history of the industry, and more.

...find an alternate online poker room and avoid 64Spades.