Plinko: how the game works and what it costs

Plinko is one of the simplest casino games. A ball drops through a pyramid of pegs and lands in one of the slots at the bottom, and each slot has its own multiplier. You can choose the number of rows and the risk level, so it feels as if your choice matters. We recomputed the published pay table of Pragmatic Play's Plinko+: at all 27 settings the game returns exactly 97.50%. Rows and risk level only change how sharply your balance swings, not what the game costs.

How a round of Plinko works

You choose a stake, the number of rows and a risk level, drop the ball, and your win is set by the multiplier of the slot where it lands.

• Stake - the amount per ball. Many versions let you drop several balls with one click or switch on autoplay.
• Rows - usually 8 to 16 rows of pegs. With n rows there are n + 1 slots at the bottom.
• Risk level - low, medium or high. The higher the risk, the bigger the multipliers at the edges and the smaller they are in the middle.
• Result - the win is the stake times the slot's multiplier. A 0.3x multiplier means a $1 stake returns $0.30.

The falling ball on screen is only a picture. Pragmatic Play's game rules say it plainly: the falling balls illustrate randomly awarded wins and do not reflect the physics of a real device. A random number generator decides the result, not the angle of the pegs.

Why the ball usually lands in the middle

At every row the ball is equally likely to go left or right, so only a ball that goes the same way on every row reaches the edge.

With 8 rows the chance of landing in a given edge slot is 1 in 256, with 12 rows 1 in 4,096, with 16 rows 1 in 65,536. The middle slots, by contrast, catch most of the balls: with 16 rows 19.64% of balls land in the centre slot and 78.99% in the middle five, so roughly four balls in five. That is why the big multipliers sit at the edges and the middle holds multipliers below 1x.

The pay table in numbers: 16 rows, high risk

Pragmatic Play's Plinko+ on 16 rows and high risk pays 1000x to one ball in 32,768, while almost 79% of balls return less than the stake.

Multipliers and the chance that the ball lands in either of the two slots with that multiplier (from the game's published pay table):

• 1000x (edge slots) - 1 in 32,768
• 123.1x - 1 in 2,048
• 25x - 0.37%
• 8x - 1.71%
• 4.1x - 5.55%
• 1.4x - 13.33%
• 0.4x - 24.44%
• 0.3x - 34.91%
• 0.2x (centre slot) - 19.64%

Add up each multiplier times its chance and you get 0.975. Every dollar staked returns 97.5 cents on average, so the game's RTP (payout percentage) is 97.50% and you lose $2.50 of every $100 on average. Low risk on 8 rows gives the same result, and so does every other setting: we recomputed all 27. RTP is a long-run average over millions of drops, not a promise for one evening.

What rows and risk level change

Rows and risk level decide how often you win and how big the wins are, but not what the game costs.

On 16 rows and high risk most balls return 0.2x to 0.4x, and the rare big win makes up for the rest. On low risk the swings are smaller, but it is still not a safe option: Plinko+ on 16 rows and low risk returns less than the stake on 54.55% of balls (0.5x or 0.9x), and the price stays the same $2.50 of every $100.

One example shows the difference. Drop 1,000 balls at $1 and the average loss is $25 at any setting. But on 8 rows and low risk the typical deviation from that average is about $16, and on 16 rows and high risk about $204. In the first case the evening ends close to the average; in the second it can end with a sizable win or a much bigger loss.

One name, different prices

"Plinko" is a genre, not one game: game makers release it with different RTPs, and some offer several versions the casino chooses from.

• Pragmatic Play Plinko+ - RTP 97.50%, 8 to 16 rows, three risk levels, top multiplier 1000x (Pragmatic Play).
• Hacksaw Gaming Plinko - seven RTP versions from 88.20% to 98.98% (Hacksaw Gaming).
• Gaming Corps Plinko - versions at 97.17% and 94.79% RTP (Gaming Corps).
• Platipus Plinko - 98.91% to 99.16% depending on the setting.
• BGaming Plinko and Spribe Plinko - 99% and 97% RTP, common at crypto casinos.

The gap is not small. At 88.20% RTP you lose $11.80 of every $100 on average, at 99% about $1. The same game can run at a different RTP at two casinos, so before you start playing, open the game's info panel and check which RTP that casino shows.

Plinko strategies: what the maths says

No Plinko strategy changes the RTP, because every ball is independent and every setting has the same price.

• Do the right rows and risk level improve your odds? No. Plinko+ returns 97.50% at all 27 settings. Only the spread of wins changes.
• Is low risk safe? No. On 16 rows and low risk more than half of the balls return less than the stake.
• Can you read the ball's path? No. The animation is a picture, and Hacksaw's rules say every ball starts falling from a randomly chosen point.
• Is the edge slot "due" after a long dry spell? No. On 16 rows the 1000x slot stays 1 in 32,768 on every drop, whatever happened before.
• Will doubling your stake after a loss win the money back? No. The average loss is the total staked times the house edge, and doubling only raises the total staked.

The real cost of Plinko is speed. One ball falls in a few seconds, Hacksaw's version lets autoplay run up to 1,000 rounds, and Plinko+ can drop 2, 5 or 10 balls on one bet. At 97.50% RTP, 1,000 balls at $1 cost $25 on average, and they can fall in a few minutes.

What provably fair Plinko is

Provably fair is a checking method used by crypto casinos: it proves the result was not changed after your bet, but it does not prove the game's RTP is good.

In crypto casino versions of Plinko, the casino shows the hash of its server seed before you bet, you can set your own client seed, and the result is computed from both seeds and the bet's sequence number. After the seeds are changed the casino reveals the server seed, and any past drop can be recomputed (Wizard of Odds). It is a useful check, but it says nothing about the pay table.

Where to play Plinko in Canada

Plinko sits in the catalogues of many casinos that accept players outside Ontario and Alberta, usually under "Crash", "Instant" or "Mini games". The version and its RTP differ from casino to casino, so the info panel matters more than the casino's name. Many casinos let you try the game in demo mode first, with no money involved.

Every casino we cover is on the all casinos page, with its payment methods, including Interac® e-Transfer, and the provinces it does not accept.

Play within your means

Plinko is a fast game with small stakes, and that is exactly why a budget drains without you noticing. Before you start, set an amount and a time for the session, and never switch on autoplay without a limit. Most casinos let you set deposit, loss and time limits in your account, and our responsible gambling page lists the free, confidential help lines for every province and territory we serve. You must be 19 or older to gamble online (18 in Quebec and Manitoba).