HEIST

Best Online Betrayal Card Games to Play With Friends

Some games are about winning together. These are about being trusted right up until the moment you aren't. If your group's favorite part of game night is the betrayal, start here.

What makes a good betrayal game?

The best ones make you need other players before they let you turn on them. If you can betray someone at any moment, nobody trusts anyone and it falls flat. The fun comes from building a deal, keeping it for a while, and then breaking it at exactly the right time.

1. Heist

Full disclosure: Heist is our game, so take this pick with that in mind.

Heist is a card game for 3 to 6 players that runs in your browser on a phone or computer. Everyone joins crews to pull jobs and split the score, and anyone can double-cross the table when the moment is right. You can play friends with a table code, quick-match strangers, or practice against bots. It's free, and your first hand is coached, so nobody has to read a rulebook first.

Betrayal is built into how Heist scores. Crews only pay off if they hold together long enough to pull the job, so every double-cross is a gamble on timing. Turn too early and you walk away with nothing.

Play Heist freeNo download. Your first hand is coached.

2. Coup

A quick bluffing card game for 2 to 6 players. Each player secretly holds two role cards and can claim to be any role to use its power. If nobody challenges you, the lie works. If someone does, the loser of the challenge loses a card. A game takes about 15 minutes, and there are free fan-made versions online.

3. Skull

Each player has four discs, three flowers and one skull. Players place discs face down, then bid on how many they can flip without hitting a skull. It's tiny, easy to teach, and full of bluffs, and it's best with 4 to 6 players.

4. Secret Hitler

A hidden-role game for 5 to 10 players in which the fascist team has to win the liberals' trust and then use it. Free fan-made browser versions such as secrethitler.io let you play online with friends.

5. Diplomacy

The classic betrayal game: seven players, pre-World War I Europe, no dice, only deals and broken promises. It's long (hours, or weeks when played online by mail), but nothing else feels quite like it. Several sites host free online games.

Quick picks

Play Heist freeNo download. Your first hand is coached.