Poker runs are a staple of charity rides, motorcycle rallies, and community festivals: visit checkpoints, draw a card at each stop, and the best hand wins. Until recently, running one digitally meant spreadsheets, manual card tracking, or awkward workarounds inside generic scavenger hunt apps. PlayTours is the only scavenger hunt app and event gamification platform we know of with native, built-in poker run support — random card draws on task completion, a live deck for players, and a facilitator dashboard that ranks every team's hand in real time.
This guide explains what the Poker Run feature is, how it differs from DIY setups, and how to configure, run, and score a poker run from start to finish. You can add screenshots between sections in the editor when you are ready.
In the real world, a poker run sends participants to a series of checkpoints. At each stop they draw one playing card. When the route is finished, whoever holds the best five-card poker hand wins — or, in many charity formats, the most cards collected earns a prize.
PlayTours brings that format into scavenger hunts, event gamification, and GPS walking tours. Checkpoints are tasks in your game. Completing a task can award a random virtual playing card to the team's deck. Organisers monitor every team's cards on the Team Decks tab in the Facilitator Dashboard and export results to Excel when it is time to announce winners.
Most scavenger hunt and event gamification apps focus on points, photos, and GPS check-ins. If you want a poker run today, you typically have to:
PlayTours treats poker runs as a first-class game mechanic, not a hack:
We are not aware of another major scavenger hunt app or event gamification platform that offers this end-to-end flow out of the box. If you are comparing tools for a poker-run-style activation, this is the feature to look for.
At a high level:
Important design choices built into the feature:
Configure your game before the event in admin.playtours.app.
Build a scavenger hunt, walking tour, or event game as you normally would — chapters (sections), tasks (stops), welcome message, and session settings.
For every task that should draw a card:
The task list shows an Awards poker card tag on enabled tasks so you can review the route at a glance. New tasks default to off — you opt in checkpoint by checkpoint.
Players do not see a special "poker card" badge on tasks in the player app. Mention in the briefing when a stop earns a card, e.g. "Complete this checkpoint to draw a playing card for your team's deck."
Common patterns:
Save the game, create a session, and share team codes or QR links as usual. Test at least one poker-enabled task on your phone before go-live.
Teams join through the normal PlayTours player link — no app store visit required.
Players do not see other teams' decks or a "you have Two Pair" label on their phone — that is intentional. The reveal stays with the organiser.
During the live session, use the Facilitator Dashboard — the same hub you may already use for photo judgements, broadcasts, and the points leaderboard.
There is no automatic "winner" screen for players — you control the reveal from Team Decks or your export file.
Rankings update automatically as cards are awarded:
Design your route with this in mind: more checkpoints mean more cards, which usually means clearer separation on the leaderboard.
On the Team Decks tab, when at least one team has cards, click Export spreadsheet (top right). PlayTours downloads an Excel file (.xlsx) with:
Use the export for winner announcements, post-event archives, sponsor reports, or importing into other tools.
A card is awarded only on successful completion of a task with the poker toggle enabled.
Cards are awarded when:
Cards are not awarded when:
Each valid completion awards exactly one card. A task can also award inventory items, coins, or time rewards at the same time — poker cards are additive.
Native poker run support opens formats that are hard to run well on generic platforms:
Because PlayTours runs in the browser, one-off visitors and tourists can join without installing an app — critical for public poker runs.
Yes. Every draw is independent. There is no shared shoe that runs out of cards.
No. Skipping never awards a poker card, even if the toggle is on for that task.
Not in the player app. Only organisers see all teams on the Team Decks tab.
Your choice. More poker-enabled tasks mean more cards per team and clearer ranking by card count. Five or more poker stops is a common minimum if you want meaningful hand comparisons.
No. Teams can hold any number of cards. Ranking uses the best five-card hand when comparing hand strength, but more total cards always beats fewer regardless of hand quality.
Yes. A team can lead on points but rank lower on Team Decks, and vice versa.
Yes — GPS stops, photo tasks, story mode, shuffle, facilitator judgements, and inventory items all work alongside poker cards.
If you have ever tried to run a poker run on a generic scavenger hunt or event app, you know the pain: manual scoring, lost cards, and no live view of who is winning. PlayTours builds the full loop — random draws on completion, a deck for every team, live facilitator rankings, and spreadsheet export — into the platform itself.
That makes PlayTours the practical choice when poker run is part of your format, not an afterthought. Whether you are planning a charity ride, a corporate offsite, or a festival game, you can configure checkpoints in the builder, run the session on the day, and announce winners from Team Decks in minutes.
Ready to try it? Sign up free at admin.playtours.app (25 concurrent devices, full features, commercial use allowed) or open QuickBuild to draft a route and add poker cards to your tasks.
Email us at hello@playtours.app
