Is Skillz Legit: Can You Make Money Playing Mobile Gaming Tournaments?

How Does Skillz Work?

With Skillz, you can compete against other players from across the world in a variety of iOS games and Android games. Skillz is free to join for all players, and each Skillz-enabled game has a variety of free-to-enter tournaments, as well as tournaments that feature real-money prizes.

So, if you are looking to earn money playing games, you will want to play those tournaments that pay real money. This requires you to make a deposit though.

Skillz works in a slightly different way from other paid gaming platforms. For example, on most gaming/reward apps like Mistplay, you download a central app and then play new games from there.

That’s not the case with Skillz though. Instead, Skillz just uses its website and iOS app to connect you to games that partner with the platform.

Here’s how it works:

1. Download a game from Skillz that you want to play.
2. Create a Skillz account when you first open the game app with a username, email, and password.
3. Make a deposit into the game you want to compete in. So, you will need to enter your credit card number or PayPal account information.
4. Play and win money. Once you have made a deposit, you can use that money to enter cash tournaments and win real cash prizes.
5. You can then withdraw your winnings at any time.

Usually, games on Skillz involve you putting your own money on the line, but as I said earlier, there are some free tournaments on offer if you’re not looking to spend cash. However, if you want to make real money with Skillz, then you will need to make a deposit.

What Games Are on Skillz?

Skillz features many popular games, such as:

• Blackout Bingo
• Solitaire Cube
• Dominoes Gold
• Pool Payday
• 21 Blitz
• Spades Cash
• Cube Cube
• Bubble Cube 2
• Spider Solitaire Cube
• Pyramid Solitaire Cube
• Strike! by Bowlero

How Much Does Skillz Cost?

Skillz is free to join, and each Skillz-enabled game has free-to-enter tournaments, which allow you to test what the games are like. The platform also offers tournaments that feature real-money prizes.

If you want to win real money, you will need to play in these paid tournaments. Paid tournaments let you win cash prizes. These tournaments cost as little as $0.60 to enter.

The platform also takes a small, variable fee from tournaments and withdrawals to generate revenue.

After being inactive for 6 months or more, accounts may incur a $2 per month maintenance fee. No maintenance fee will be collected if your account balance is $0.

You can withdraw your remaining real cash balance and request to close your account.

How Does Skillz Pay You?

As I said earlier, in order to win real cash, you will need to make a deposit. So, you’ll need to enter your credit card number or PayPal account information. After you’ve paid the deposit, you will be able to enter cash tournaments, and win cash. If you win, you can withdraw your earnings at any time.

Simply tap Withdraw on the main menu to get started with withdrawing your winnings.

Payment options on Skillz include PayPal, credit card, or check.

Now, how payments work is a little complex. Basically, any withdrawals up to the number of your total deposits will be processed using the same form of payment as your deposit, either using your credit card or PayPal account, in order of oldest to newest deposits made.

Then, winnings that exceed your total deposit amount will be sent to you as a check if you are in the U.S., or to your PayPal account if you are playing from another country.

Here are some examples to explain more:

Let’s say you live in the U.S., and you deposited $10 with your credit card. Later, you withdraw $20. Skillz would refund $10 back to your credit card and send you a $10 check in the mail.

If you live in another country and deposited $10 using PayPal, and later you withdraw $20, Skillz would send $20 to your PayPal account.

Skillz says that players can expect their money in four to six weeks, but in many cases, it is able to process withdrawals much more quickly.

Is Skillz Legit?

Okay, so is Skillz legit?

It certainly has some factors that speak to its legitimacy.

Skillz has real offices in San Francisco, and it’s publicly traded on the stock market too. It’s also accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) where it has an A+ rating. Seems good right?

Well, just because a company has offices and is accredited by the BBB, it doesn’t mean that it’s actually worth your time.

The best way to determine if a company is indeed worth your time is to look at how it’s rated by real users.

User reviews on websites like Trustpilot, Reddit, and the Better Business Bureau can show how good a company actually is, rather than how good it claims to be on its site. And, well, I did a lot of digging through user reviews on various platforms, and oh boy is it not good!

Buckle up for this one! Skillz wasn’t particularly well-reviewed anywhere. That’s not to say there were no good reviews at all. They were just few and far between.

Here’s how Skillz is rated on a few different platforms:

• Trustpilot: 2.1 stars, which is a rating of “Poor.”
• The Better Business Bureau: 1.92-star rating from customers
• iOS store: 3.8 stars
• Galaxy store: 4 stars

Yeah, aside from the Galaxy store, which by the way on there many of the reviews were just people sharing codes, and there were still many complaints about it with a lot of people saying it’s a scam, Skillz is very badly rated.

Skills User Reviews

So, what do all of these user reviews have to say?

The most common complaints I saw were people saying that they didn’t get their winnings, that when they started winning a lot, their accounts were closed, and that Skillz accused them of having multiple accounts and closed their accounts without allowing them to get their winnings.

Also, there were many reports of poor customer service.

People also complained that the way players are matched on Skillz isn’t that fair, because as players win more matches, they are matched with more difficult opponents, making it harder to win.

Here are some reviews:

• “Requested for a cash out and they went to the pathetic length to avoid paying the cash out by saying that I have multiple accounts so they closed my account and forfeited all my money and the withdrawal will be cancelled. After emailing them a few times, they insisted that they were correct and I’m wrong and they eventually stopped replying to my emails to them. Waste of money and such a scam. Avoid this game.” (Review from Trustpilot).
• “Skillz is typical scam. Read on…You are their friend only UNTIL you start winning. (in my scenario, I was playing using bonus cash and winning real cash).The moment you get good and start withdrawing real cash they will ban you. Skillz will find some lame excuse to justify why you cant withdraw money.” (Review from the BBB).
• “I got shut down I had $500 that I earned and because I had signed up once with a different email for a different game they closed my account. Now I’m out that money and fighting to get it back.” (Review from Reddit)

This Reddit thread is worth a read because it highlights a common issue of the company randomly closing people’s accounts with little explanation, so have a look at that for more information.

Of course, there are people who claimed to have made $1,000s from the platform, but most of the reviewers complained about their experience on Skillz.

Skillz Pros & Cons

Here are the pros and cons:

Pros

Here are the pros:

• Allows you to earn money playing games.

Cons

Here are the cons:

• You have to deposit money in order to win real cash. There’s no guarantee you’ll win the game, so you could lose money. One Redditor said they lost $10,000.
• Payment, aside from your refunded deposit, is sent by check if you are in the U.S. Checks take ages compared to PayPal, so that’s not ideal for U.S. players.
• Bad customer reviews.
• Terrible customer service.

Overall verdict

Overall, I would NOT recommend Skillz!

First of all, you have to put your own money in to actually win anything, and you’re not guaranteed to win. To me, that makes it very similar to gambling, which is always risky. You could lose $100s or even $1,000s.

That’s not the only reason I wouldn’t recommend it though. The reviews of it are really bad. I saw so many people saying that they had their accounts closed and couldn’t get their winnings. I would avoid this one. Other apps, like Mistplay and Swagbucks, are much better options.

Sure, these don’t pay you thousands, but you also don’t lose thousands either! These apps don’t require you to pay money. If you’re looking to make a few $1,000 extra a month, I would recommend trying work from home jobs, side hustle apps, and delivery apps instead.

There were so many more bad elements about the company that I left out too because this review would be way too long!

If you want to make money playing games, I would skip Skillz. I would not recommend Skillz at all!

Have you ever used Skillz? If so, feel free to share your Skillz review with us in the comments section below.