Bubble Cash: Play For Fun, Not For Money

What is Bubble Cash?

Bubble Cash is a bubble-popping game that promises cash for playing. But the odds of winning real money here are definitely not in your favor.

How it works

You simply download the app from either the Apple App store or from the Bubble Cash site. (Google Play doesn’t offer this app.)

Then you choose whether to play for free or to deposit money to buy into games and tournaments, where you can supposedly win money.

Bubble Cash review

Bubble Cash is a classic bubble-popping game with a slight twist — you can play against others. The app promises to pay you to play and watch advertisements between each game. However, the developers have cleverly figured out ways to rig the chances that you’ll ever get paid.

When we first reviewed Bubble Cash in 2023, it and its sister companies, Bingo Cash and Solitaire Cash, managed this by having a $150 pay-out threshold. You couldn’t cash out until you hit that level. And, as you built up money within the app, you’ll see a funny thing. The amount you “earn” for playing and beating different levels declined precipitously.

When you got close to the magic $150 mark, payments dry up completely. And if you persist in playing despite earning nothing — perhaps in the vain hope that the game will play fair — the site will eventually told you to go away.

Bot players?

Now, Bubble Cash has cut it’s payment threshold to $5, but charges a $1 cash-out fee, so really $6. How does it make sure it doesn’t have to pay out even that small amount? Players maintain that if they win a lot, they’re suddenly put into new player groupings where they’re less likely to win. If they start to win anyway, new players swoop in and are so lights-out amazing that they blow all the other players away…by miles.

Naturally, the long-time players think there’s something fishy about these mystery winners — like, maybe, they’re bots. In responses to player complaints the site denies this. But given the company’s history, we think suspicion is warranted.

Onerous terms

The site’s terms have other red flags too. Specifically, the site reserves the right to change the rules as they go — without giving you prior notice. The rules they can change?

How your cash balance is calculated, whether there are withdrawal fees; how much they charge in withdrawal fees; and how much you need to have in your account to withdraw money at all. (Like the $150 withdrawal threshold the site once imposed.) In addition, the site can decide to pay you with an alternative payment method, like a gift card.

The site can also ask you to verify your identity before cashing out and has the right to take 90 days before it pays you. If you close your account before withdrawing your funds, the site can seize your balance. And, if you just stop playing for six months, the site can charge a $2 inactive account fee until you have nothing left in your account.

Recommendations

If you love to play bubble games, go ahead and download this app. We would just strongly advise you not to give this company money or your credit card with the naive idea that you’re going to win money playing this game.

There are smart-phone game apps that do pay you — small amounts, to be sure. But, if you sign up with Scrambly, Mistplay or Rewarded Play you’ll at least get a few pennies, as promised.

If you want to actually earn money playing games, you may want to check out StartPlaying or Outschool.

StartPlaying is a forum for role-playing games that enlists game-enthusiasts to be “game masters,” and organize games around a theme of their own choosing. Outschool is a learning site that allows freelance teachers to set suggest classes and workshops that can involve everything from playing Legos to exploring video games.

Both sites let you set your own rates. Your hourly pay depends on how many people book your game or class.

What their users say (from Apple)

I downloaded this game to see how enjoyable it would be, and while it is quite fun it’s definitely not worth your hard earned money. I have noticed a pattern within the game to put players in leagues where they will definitely lose. There really is a maximum amount of points that anyone can earn based on the game’s rules and it’s nearly impossible to go over that amount, yet there always seems to be one or two “players” that somehow win by such a large margin that it seems rigged.

Bubble cash works very very hard at finding ways for us NOT to win. They work VERY hard and taking our money and putting into their pockets leaving us with nothing.

They’ll let you win until you get on a good streak and suddenly the scores of the people you’re playing against magically get extremely high. They says it’s because of leveling up and matching you to your skill level. However wouldn’t it make so much more sense if you seen how you grew in skill level and you were in a certain category? Not just the “games algorithm” magically making you lose the better you are?

The people you play against are bots and so many times you’ll lose by just a couple of points which, is very unlikely to happen on consistent coincidence. You cannot withdraw cash that you won off bonus challenges.

No matter how good you are or how much you play, you will not make money off of this. I’ve been playing about a year now unfortunately and have lost a lot in hopes that I’d gain. Complete and total rip off.

What their users said in 2023 (from Google Play, which no longer hosts this app)

This game is definitely a one-trick pony. Trying to get to the $150 doesn’t seem possible or worth it, especially since you can beat the game without reaching the goal, which makes for a tedious, endless replay session just to build the money. Don’t waste your time downloading. (July 3, 2023)

Scam game, it promises to pay out once you save $150 but does not contain enough levels to get there. Plus graphically it cuts off the side of the screen making it less functional. It is simply meant for ad revenue generation by the company. (July 12, 2023)

Can’t cash out

I played the game till I reached the payout level 150.00 and it won’t payout. It took a long time to reach the amount. The payout earned amount decreased as you progress down to where you had to play 20 games to earn a penny Game was fun ads sucked developing company are scammers. (July 4, 2023)

Time Waster! The closer you get to $150 cash out option the smaller reward is given. Ads before and after each level played and every time I chose additional balls. Rewards get as low as 1 cent per level. It took several hours a day to earn the last dollar. Once I reached $150 tried to cash out. Result, message saying a balance of $0 needed to cash out. (July 17, 2023)

Edit: sounds like we’ve all had a similar experience. Anyone up for filing a lawsuit against the company for false advertising and scamming people? Horrible game. Don’t waste your time! They make you think you can actually make money, but they have a $150 cash out minimum, and once you get to $149.99 the game continues on forever and never pays you again so you never get to the payout amount. Total scam. (July 13, 2023)

Rigged

Don’t play this game. It has 100 levels and 1 stage. You can’t cash out until you get $150. I got to $149.79 and it stopped even giving me 1 cent, it got tired of me trying to get to the 150. When I got to the level 100, it told me I completed and didn’t go any further, I had to work around to get the $149.79. (July 10, 2023)

This game is not worth playing first of all too many ads, and this game only goes to 100 I went through all 100 and the amount of money totaled $132 so they have u playing all the boards knowing you don’t make it to $150, then after the 100 board it tells u that you have completed all the boards. Wowwwwwww (July 8, 2023)

1. The more you play the less your earnings get. 2. There’s an ad after every level. 3. It won’t let me get past 149.82. And you have to have 150.0 to cash out. So I don’t know if that even works. Eveytime I beat a level it says 0.00 earned. (June, 2023)

Scam

I was disappointed in this game they make so you can’t reach the minimum cash out balance of 150.00. You get close but all the sudden you’ve reached the end of the game. These games that promise to pay you to play them is fraud so don’t waste your time with any of them. (July 9, 2023)

It’s a scam, the closer you get to $150 to cash out the smaller you win. Then I literally got stuck at $ 149.99 for 3 hours and gave up. Keep in mind, it only took me a week to get to that initial point. Total scam. (July 6, 2023)