Last updated on January 15th, 2026 at 07:23 am
Pinochle Gold – Casino Game Review
Pinochle Gold is a Casino/Board/Entertainment game from fishdog.net, LLC, first launched in 25th May 2010.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 1,408+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Pinochle Gold Stand Out
This is a no-ads, no-tracking, no-subscriptions version of the first and most popular pinochle app for iPad, iPhone, and Mac. Play single- or double-deck with configurable options, including meld bids and shoot the moon. Pinochle Gold has more tabletops and more card back options than Pinochle Plus and is updated frequently with user-suggested features and AI improvements. To try before you buy, see our free, ad-supported Pinochle app.
Pinochle is a card game played with a 48- or 80-card deck of 9s, 10s, jacks, queens, kings and aces. The game consists of a repeating sequence of bidding (for the right to name the trump suit and optionally to pass cards), melding, and trick-taking. Players score points by melding various card combinations and by taking tricks.
In this version, one human player (South) plays with a computer partner (North) and two computer opponents (West and East).
BIDDING: Each player bids the number of points she thinks she can make with her hand. Player to the dealer's left is required to bid, and bidding proceeds to the left. Players who pass are out of the bidding for that hand. A typical high bid is 35 points (for 48 cards) or 60 (for 80 cards). High bidder names the trump suit for the hand and optionally exchanges cards with her partner.
MELDING: Players get points by showing various card combinations. A run (or straight) in the trump suit is worth 15 points. Aces in all four suits is 10 points. Pinochle (queen of spades and jack of diamonds) is 4 points, or 30 points for double pinochle (two of each).
TRICKS: Play begins with the high bidder, and proceeds around the table to the left, 4 cards per trick. Each trick has a winner, who gets 1 point per ace, ten or king.
SCORING: If the high bidder fails to make the bid (his team's total meld plus trick points is less than the bid), the bid amount is subtracted from the team score. Play continues until one team goes out.
This Casino game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Pinochle Gold is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 4th October 2025
Recent improvements include:
Fixes South's card positioning bug that could force table cards too high on phones in landscape mode, obscuring North's play.
Download & Availability
Pinochle Gold is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Pinochle Gold on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
'we can win against every computer.
We configured it to play 90% similar to the way we play in Philadelphia. Love the app, highly recommend it.
You get 1 good hand the other players get 20 good hands . Your team will win mostly without you.
We think the score board should be under Norths cards or above South for easier reading- we would like cards to alternate colors because for people with vision problems would could see them better vs thinking they have a run when actually they have diamonds and hearts together and bid accordingly.
How is it when East and west bring in a bid with no aces then his partner has all four of them? How can they get back to back double runs or 1000 aces. How come the other team always remember every trump that is played.
We enjoy the options given playing pinochle gold. You can replay a hand, show all cards which is handy for learning, shoot the moon, and much more.
Great game except North will not pass 10. He will pass the K,Q,J before passing a 10. Also, Ive found North to bid a 3 card suit when he has a better 4 card suit and will fold too easily after Ive bid.
Ive been throwing knucks since we learned 30 years ago while in the Air Force. The number of double runs in this game is unrealistic. We also have to actively try to lose and sometimes we still end up winning. Im good but not that good. Please add difficulty levels and make the most difficult level really challenging. Otherwise the interface and usability is phenomenal. Kudos the design.
Cannot invite three friends to play the game. Worthless.
Great game. Our only wish is that there would be a couple of rule modifications available. We grew up playing a version that each player only bids once, and kings and queens are both worth 5 points. Each of these rules changes gameplay in an interesting way, and it would be great to have the option to turn these features on.
Pinochle is a great game which teaches as well as allowing you get better with your skills. It is satisfying beating the computer.
Ive played this for years and love it. Over the years we have made a few suggestions and they have been responded to and usually implemented (once immediately). Im remiss in not doing a review till now.
We love the game of pinochle but tired of playing the same cards over and over. Please play new games of cards.
This game allows winning a hand or keeping your meld without saving. No skill required, just get more meld than the other guy. No need to save double queens for example, you automatically get your meld. VERY BIG BUG.
We dont know how many times our "partner" has hung onto a king or queen to get a few meld points instead of passing it to get 30. And that is at the Insane setting. Its INSANE for sure.
Love playing this game, everything works great,smooth.
Pinochle is our favorite game, played nearly 70 years, 3 days a week before COVID-19. This game is excellent, stands out above the others Ive downloaded.
The robot hand often bids ridiculous amounts, just bidding up.
100% fantastic for playing by yourself or (re)learning the game. Needs online support so we can play with friends far away or quarantined at home.
Our partner plays well but needs to improve on passing such as including jack of diamonds with a spade suit bid called.
Many times, when the player takes the bid, and then melds plenty of points so that he/she only needs to take the mandatory 20 points, we still receive a message asking if the player wants to Concede the Hand. Thats very frustrating. We can understand the question anytime more than 20 points are necessary to make the bid, but when only the obligatory or mandatory 20 points are necessary, the question should not come up. Please correct this, Thank you. DTB.
We have never had a partner who plays so badly. Not worth the $.
Great game to play. Could play all day; just love it.
The game could be improved by more realistic hands over time. We go into streaks where the hands are pathetic and then a stretch where we cant lose. Cant believe thats the way random dealing of cards would be dealt.
This game is very skewed to the other team we have played enough pinochle to know that cards get more shuffled and distributed to all players more evenly than this app. Very disappointed. Not fun to sit by and see the computer play with themselves.
Hi, along with not being able to read what trump is with the voiceover screen reader on iphone, we also can't tell what the score of the game in progress is. Uh, that's kind of a big problem!!!! We sent emails regarding both issues to the developer so hopefully this review + those emails will help fix the issue. Other than those two rather important issues, it's a great game and very accessible.
Worst deals possible. Checked over 50 deals. The East-West, alway have a better playing hand. The E-W generally have a 70% chance of getting a run. Not so for North-South.
Sure could make the computer game smarter with melt and bidding. Fun game and enjoy, but not as good as could be. Computer sometimes bids and passes stupid.
The game is great but the folks that developed the playing hands have no card sense,.
This game is totally worthless! Doesnt correctly pass meld, pass aces, or understand the game! If opponent gets bid they get 50 + meld and most of the aces. And go right to their partner even without a lead back. Your partner has no idea how to play or recognize an ace lead back or not much of anything! Dont waste your money! We have already scrubbed it from our iPad! We want a total refund.
Realistic and great strategy. Possibly could have 3 levels of play. Easy, moderate, challenging.
Love this app! We play it every day. Helping us to learn so we can play with people.
Partner has a problem with overbidding or selecting wrong trump which leads to setting of team. Partner does not count trump which leads to misplays. Despite those deficiencies we do like playing . Thanks.
We configured it to play 90% similar to the way we play in Philadelphia. Love the app, highly recommend it.
The robo partner consistently passes cards that no true player would pass…the robo partner consistently holds the queen of spades and sends over the jack of diamonds, splitting up the pinochle…the robo partner consistently passes with bidable and winnable hands…it makes no sense why they have their game set up to pass and play the way they do.
We have had to delete and reinstall the app because it will randomly freeze during play. It does have a good interface but not the best compared to others.
We have played pinochle for more years than we care to remember. This game is terrible. Either you make 40-50 points or you go set. Not much n between. Also goes in streaks for winning. One team will win several hands and games. Then the other team will do the same. No challenge when on a hot streak and "can't buy" meld when you are losing. AGGRAVATING.
After every game screen goes blank. Awful.
Im a pinochle instructor and have searched all the games out there and this is the best. We wish the developers would offer a way to redo the precious game.. We like to test out different play approaches.
This game is not without its flaws, but very entertaining nonetheless if you like double deck. You have the ability to set how the computer plays and tweak to your liking. We did mention flaws and here are a few: none of the computer players bid 51 for aces, they overbid meld, for example bidding 20 meld with 10 and sometimes not bidding meld at all, the computer players always lead with aces in trump (we wish there was a way to turn that off), they will play trump even when the only person has them left is their partner, and we could go on. But playing this for years now, it does keep improving with each update. The one concern we would have is this a really fun app for experienced players, since they can understand the the flaws and work around them, but this not how tournament players play in RL.
Very weird passing From your partner.
At times the computer will pass an ace instead of the fourth leg of a double marriage, and sometimes it wont pass the 10 of a family. These are stupid choices and should be corrected in the underlying logic. Whatever code it has for double pinochles should be used also for double marriages, and it should prioritize the passing of trump cards first.
We love playing this game despite some errors in computer programming when bidding and playing out the hand.
Definitely slanted to EW players. Would love to have opportunity to play hand a second time, changing suits. Consider it treadmill worthy, can play and walk simultaneously.
This is a fun game and a smooth app. Whoever built in the codes however are absurd. The computer melds easily 35-40 each and every hand….. Your meld? A 9 of trump. The computer always, ALWAYS has 100 aces. A run. Or double pinochle. Your computer partner passes crap as well. Holds trump and passes you randoms. Fun game… Terribly built. Kind of takes the fun out of it.
How is it when East and west bring in a bid with no aces then his partner has all four of them? How can they get back to back double runs or 1000 aces.
We have played several other pinochle apps and this is by far the best one out there. So why the three stars? This is so frustrating that we have almost deleted the app. In a hand we have had an extremely good hand, but no meld. Our partner passes, so we have no option but to pass. We lay down our meld and he has double aces. This happened with double aces, kings, etc. Etc. Something similar also happens, our partner passes before we can bid. We have a lot of meld, double pinochle plus aces, and other stuff – but no marriage. The others take the bid. At the end our hands are shown. He has twelve cards in a suit (run). We hit NEW GAME and start over. A note – we know this is an iPad so the use of he and him are used because thats the way we think when Im playing.
Please reprogram the app. Its crazy when: -Partner bids when score is 149 and the opponents have less than 20 -Partner bids ridiculously high when one short of a double pinochle. Nothing else in the hand.
- When all the aces of trump are played and you hold one of the 10s, and it is your play, the 10 of trump should be played when you are the opponent. 2. If your partner call trump, you should pass a double marriage if you are holding them. A double run scores more than holding the double marriage. 3. If you have the bid and you are passing back to your partner, you should pass the pinochle back, instead of holding on to a queen just to score a points for a marriage when it could give your partner double pinochle. This is when spades or diamonds are not trump.
This game is really irritating us the bidding strategy by our partner is all over the place. One hand he/she bids on nothing and now they had a double ace full run in hand and passed in the first round! Driving us.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 26.0.4
- Size: 52.21 MB
- iOS: 15.0 or later
- Languages: DA, NL, EN, FR, DE, HI, NB, SV, TR
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: fishdog.net, LLC
Last updated: 4th October 2025 | Genre: Casino, Board | Developer: fishdog.net, LLC