How to play Balatro multiplayer with friends

What you need

Balatro Multiplayer is a community-made mod, not an official feature -- it runs on the PC version of the game (Windows, Mac, or Linux, including Steam Deck) through two underlying mod tools, Steamodded and Lovely Injector. You don't need to install those two yourself: the mod's site, balatromp.com, has an official launcher that installs Lovely, Steamodded, and the multiplayer mod together, with download links for each platform. Run the launcher, let it install everything, and it also handles switching mod versions later if you ever need to. (There's a manual install path too, documented on balatromp.com/docs, for anyone who'd rather install Lovely and Steamodded by hand.)

Setting up a lobby and inviting a friend

Once the mod is installed and Balatro launches with it active:

1. Open the Multiplayer menu and create a lobby, picking a ruleset and your preferred stake.
2. Press View Code to get a short, shareable lobby code.
3. Send that code to your friend (Discord DM works fine).
4. They open Multiplayer, choose Join Lobby, and enter the code.
5. Once everyone's in, the host starts the match.

If you don't have a specific friend to invite yet, the mod also has public matchmaking queues that pair you with another player automatically instead of a private lobby.

Rulesets and stakes in brief

A lobby's host picks a ruleset when creating it. Ranked Queue runs rebalanced cards and jokers for competitive play; Vanilla Queue keeps the original game balance with a seed synced for both players; Smallworld restricts everyone to a smaller slice of the card pool for faster, scrappier runs. There are a few other named formats too (Sandbox, Badlatro, Traditional), plus fully custom lobbies with whatever options you want. Independent of the ruleset, the host also sets Balatro's own built-in stake -- the game's normal difficulty ladder -- same as a solo run.

Then join the league

Playing one match with a friend is the whole mod in miniature -- a Balatro League season is that same mod, structured: you're placed in a division of similarly-rated players, given a fixed set of opponents (or a full round robin in smaller divisions) over a few weeks, and you report results as you go. Finish well and you're promoted to a harder division next season; finish poorly and you drop down. See how it works for the full rundown, or go straight to join the league to sign up for the next season. If you'd rather play on a drafted team with conferences and playoffs instead of solo, the sister event is the Pizza Power Team Tour.

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