🦈 CardShark: card games played live inside Discord

Open a real card table right inside Discord, invite your friends, and play. 🃏 No website to visit, no account to make, nothing to buy. Fifteen games in the CardShark Activity, fourteen of them as slash commands in chat too if you'd rather play there, and 🤖 computer players whenever you're short a seat.

🎮 The CardShark Activity: a live table in Discord

The Activity is a full game table that opens inside Discord itself, on your 💻 computer or your 📱 phone. Cards are dealt, chips slide across the felt, and everyone in the channel can join the same table.

🃏 Fifteen games

• ♠️ Poker: Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, Badugi, Five-Card Draw, Seven-Card Stud, Razz and Five-Card Stud
• ♥️ Trick-taking: Spades, Hearts, Bid Whist and Pinochle
• 🎲 Other: Go Fish 🐟, Pai Gow Poker and Blackjack

🚀 How to start a game

1. ➕ Add CardShark to your server with the Invite button on this page.
2. ⌨️ In any channel, type /play and tap the button. Or click the Apps button in the message bar, choose CardShark, then Launch. 📱 On a phone, press and hold the + button, then tap Apps.
3. 🪑 Pick a game and sit down. Friends in the channel tap Join to play with you.

🎬 A one-minute video shows every step: https://cardsharkbot.com/how-to-play

⭐ Why it's fun

• 🤖 Bots fill the empty seats. Play alone to learn a game, or with friends and let the bots make up the numbers.
• 🪙 Practice or play for chips. Poker tables with bots are practice tables, with no chips at stake. Sit down with only real people and you play for your server's play-money chips.
• 💥 Made for card players. Real side pots, split high/low pots, Spades nil bids, the ace of spades slamming down, the queen of spades landing on someone's trick. 🔒 Your cards stay private: nobody else ever sees them.
• 📱 Desktop and phone. The table fits Discord's window, side panel or full screen, and phones in portrait or landscape.

🛠️ "Failed to launch: you do not have permission to use activities"? A server admin needs to turn on Use Activities for your role (Server Settings → Roles), and check the channel's own permissions. Run /activity_check and CardShark lists every channel where Activities are blocked.

💬 Prefer it in chat? Slash-command games

Every game but Blackjack also runs on a rendered table posted right in the channel, with buttons to play and your hand sent to you privately. Fourteen games:

• ♠️ Poker: /poker (Texas Hold'em), /omaha, /omaha_hilo, /five_card_draw, /badugi, /five_card_stud, /seven_card_stud, /razz
• ♥️ Trick-taking: /spades, /hearts, /bid_whist, /pinochle
• 🎲 Other: /go_fish 🐟 and /pai_gow

🔘 Buttons, not typing: fold, call, raise, bid and play with one tap, with ⏱️ turn timers and an Extra Time button when you need a minute.

🏆 Chips, leaderboards and more

• 📈 Player ratings. Spades, Hearts, Bid Whist, Pinochle and Go Fish have a rating: everyone starts at 1,000, win to climb, and you see your change at the end of every game.
• 🏆 A leaderboard for every game, for your server and for everyone: https://cardsharkbot.com/leaderboards. Poker, Pai Gow and Blackjack rank by net chips won. /rank shows where you stand.
• 🪙 Play-money chips, per server. /daily gives you 1,000 chips, /balance shows your stack and /leaderboard ranks the biggest stacks. Nothing can be bought, sold or cashed out.
• 📺 Showcase channel. Admins can run /showcase on in a channel and the bots play every game back to back, so newcomers can watch before they sit down.
• 💡 Quiet when you want it. Now and then a short tip shows under a finished game; admins can turn it off with /tips.

🔐 Permissions

The bot needs: View Channel, Send Messages, Embed Links, Attach Files, Read Message History and Manage Messages (the bot tidies its own old table messages between hands). Nothing privileged.

Players need: Discord's Use Activities permission to open the Activity. It's on by default; if a server or channel has turned it off, /activity_check shows where.

🌐 Website: https://cardsharkbot.com · 🎬 How to play: https://cardsharkbot.com/how-to-play · 💬 Community: https://discord.gg/JUsAWqecaG

Shuffle up and deal! 🦈♠️♥️♦️♣️