Scene One.    It is a St.Petersburg summer park. Friends Tsurin, Tomsky and Chekalinsky are talking about Gherman, which spends nights in a gambling house but never bets, since he is poor.
Gherman admits he is in love with a girl above his station, whose name he does not even know. Prince Yeletsky strolls into the park. The officers congratulate him on his recent engagement. Yeletsky points out his fiancйe, Lisa, who has just appeared with her grandmother, the old Countess. Gherman realizes that Lisa is his unknown beloved.
Meeting Gherman, everyone stands motionless, as if having presentiment of one’s own fate. Gherman seems to be a fatal ghost to the Countess. Tomsky reassures her. After guiding her away, he tells one intriguing case of her life. Once, in her youth, the Countess, which was called in Paris "Moscow Venus" for her beauty, lost her all estate at gambling. Count St. Germain, at the cost of their love rendezvous, had named three winning cards to her, and later she succeeded at gambling by trading her favors for the winning formula and returned her wealth. Only her husband and her lover ever learned her secret. But she was warned by an apparition to beware a "third suitor" who would try to force it from her.
A fixed idea to reveal this secret, to become rich and marry Lisa, obsesses Gherman.
Scene Two.           It is Lisa’s room. After a duet of Lisa and her friend Pauline about evening in the countryside, Pauline launches into a sad ballad, followed by a dancelike song.
Alone, Lisa admits that it is not the prince Yeletsky, but the mysterious stranger with the romantic look in his eyes, who has stirred her heart.

Gherman appears on a balcony. Desperately he tells about his love and begs her to take pity on him.
Having heard voices, the Countess is knocking at Lisa’s door. Lisa hides Gherman. An appearance of the Countess reminds him again about the mystery of the three cards.

Scene Three. This is a masquerade in a house of a Petersburg’s high official. Three masks — Tomsky, Chekalinsky and Tsurin — decide to play a joke on Gherman.
Lisa indifferently listens to Yeletsky’s declaration of love. Gherman receives a note from Lisa, asking him to meet her in a hall. Officers are laughing at the desire of Gherman to learn the secret of the three magical cards.
There begins a pastoral play about love and fidelity of Prilepa and Milovzor. After the play, Lisa slips Gherman a key to her grandmother's room.
Pompous hymn sounds in honor of the arrival of Empress Catherine the Great.
Scene Four. One can see the Countess' room. Gherman slips into it through a secret door. He feels that a mysterious force links him and the Countess.
Here the Countess approaches surrounded by her dependants. The Countess deplores the manners of today and reminisces about her youth, singing an air from Grйtry's Richard Coeur-de-Lion. She sung it with success at the Court of the King of France.

Gherman’s appearance, his passionate pleading to tell him about her secret shocks the Countess. Gherman threatens her with a pistol. She dies of fright. Lisa understands the terrible sense of Gherman’s words and orders him out.

Scene Five. In his room at the barracks, Gherman reads a letter from Lisa. A pity for her arouses in his heart.

In his thoughts he recurs to the death of the Countess. Her ghost appears in his unhealthy imagination. The Countess names the three cards. Gherman, hurrying to a gambling house, repeats the three cards — three, seven, ace.
Scene Six. By the Winter Canal, Lisa waits for Gherman. She is sure that he is not a criminal, but "a victim of an accident."
Gherman is obsessed by only one idea — how to win. Lisa is struck by his madness. Realizing that all is lost, she throws herself into the river.
Scene Seven. This is the gambling house. Tomsky is a leader here. Everyone enjoys. Only Yeletsky is sad: his engagement to Lisa has been broken. He has come here to take revenge on Gherman.
In the heat of the gambling Gherman arrives. With surprising assurance he bets the three with 40,000 rubles. He bets the seven with the winning and wins again. Everyone is seized by fear — "Devil himself plays with you." Acting on nervous impulse, Gherman is accusing Petersburg’s high society.
Yeletsky is playing with Gherman. Opening a card, Gherman feels assurance in his victory. But instead of the ace he has the queen of spades in his hands. It seems to him that he has recognized the Countess for the queen. Having gone mad, Gherman takes his own life. Before the death, his mind becomes clear, and Gherman is whispering Lisa’s name.