Where plinko comes from
Plinko became famous as a game on the American show The Price Is Right, where it was first played on January 3, 1983. The contestant drops large chips down an upright pegboard and wins the amount marked on the slot each chip lands in. The top amount sits in the middle slot.
The board itself is much older. In the 1870s the English scientist Francis Galton built a device with rows of pins that balls fall through, known today as the Galton board. He used it to show that many random bounces left and right produce a predictable pattern: most balls end up in the middle and fewer and fewer towards the edges.
Plinko rules: one round step by step
- Choose your stake. In our Plinko game you pick 5, 10, 25, 50 or 100 virtual credits.
- Drop the ball. The ball starts at the top of the board.
- The ball falls through the rows of pegs. At every row it bounces left or right, with an equal chance either way.
- The ball lands in a slot. The slot at the bottom sets the multiplier, and your stake times that multiplier is what you get back.
There is no decision to make once the ball is dropped. You do not choose where it lands and you cannot steer it, so the stake is the only choice you make.
The board, rows and slots
The board in our game has 8 rows of pegs and 9 slots at the bottom. The slot a ball lands in depends only on how many times it bounced right: never means the far left slot, eight times the far right slot, and four times the middle slot.
Many different paths lead to the middle slot, but only one leads to each edge slot. That is why the ball usually lands in the middle and rarely at the edges, even though every single bounce is completely random.
Many other online plinko versions let you choose the number of rows and a risk level. More rows and higher risk usually mean bigger multipliers at the edges and smaller ones in the middle, but the way the ball falls through the pegs stays the same.
Plinko multipliers by slot
In our game the multipliers run from the edges towards the middle in this order: 10x, 3x, 1.5x, 0.6x and 0.4x in the middle slot, then the same again towards the other edge. The edge slots pay most because they are the rarest, and the middle slot pays least because it is the most common.
The multiplier shows how much of your stake comes back, the stake included. With a 10 credit stake the 3x slot returns 30 credits, which is 20 more than you put in. The 0.6x slot returns 6 credits, a loss of 4 credits even though something comes back.
Plinko odds for every slot
Through 8 rows the ball can take 256 equally likely paths. The table shows how many of those paths lead to each slot:
| Slot | Multiplier | Paths out of 256 | Chance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Far left or far right | 10x | 1 | 0.39% |
| Second from the edge | 3x | 8 | 3.13% |
| Third from the edge | 1.5x | 28 | 10.94% |
| Fourth from the edge | 0.6x | 56 | 21.88% |
| Middle slot | 0.4x | 70 | 27.34% |
The chances in the table apply to each of the two slots at the same distance from the edge, except for the middle slot, of which there is only one. Together they make 100 percent. The ball lands in one of the two edge slots about once every 128 drops, and in a slot that returns more than the stake in about 28.9 percent of drops. In the other 71.1 percent or so, less than the stake comes back.
Return to player and the house edge
Multiply every multiplier by its chance, add the results, and you get the return to player, or RTP. In our plinko it is about 96.56 percent: for every 100 credits staked the game pays back 96.56 on average. The gap of about 3.44 percent is the house edge.
That average only holds over a very large number of drops. In a short session the result can swing a long way either way, and one edge slot can cover many small losses. The house edge stays the same regardless.
Is there a plinko strategy?
No. Every bounce off a peg is independent, and no drop knows what happened in the one before. A run of balls in the middle does not mean the next one is due at the edge.
- The size of your stake only changes how many credits you win or lose, not the odds.
- Betting systems, such as doubling the stake after a loss, do not change the return to player; they only use up credits faster.
- Dropping many balls quickly has no effect on where each one lands.
A good way to understand plinko is to drop a large number of balls with virtual credits and watch the spread at the bottom move closer to the odds table.
Plinko on this site
On besplatnikazino.com you play Plinko with virtual credits only. There are no deposits, prizes or payouts, and the credits have no value outside the game. Next to classic plinko with stakes you will also find arcade games with balls and pegs that are scored in points. The site is meant for people over 18, and if gambling for money is becoming a problem, see the page on gambling and responsible play for where to get help.
Common questions
How do you play plinko?
You choose a stake and drop the ball from the top of the board. It falls through the rows of pegs, bounces left or right at each one, and stops in a slot at the bottom. That slot's multiplier sets how much of the stake comes back.
Which plinko slot is the most common?
The middle slot. On an 8 row board 70 of the 256 possible paths lead there, so the ball lands in it in about 27 percent of drops.
How often does the ball land at the edge?
On an 8 row board only one of the 256 paths leads to each edge slot. The ball lands in one of the two edges about once every 128 drops.
What is the RTP of plinko?
In the plinko on this site the return to player is about 96.56 percent, so the house edge is about 3.44 percent. In other versions it depends on the number of rows and the multipliers, so it differs.
Can you predict where the ball will land?
No. Every bounce is random and independent of earlier drops, and no strategy changes the odds or the house edge.