Mines vs Plinko vs crash games like Aviator

The short version

What you control

Mines gives you the most say. You pick the mine count, and after every safe tile you decide again whether to go on. Nothing moves until you click.

Plinko gives you a choice before the drop and none after. You set the rows and the risk level, and the ball's path decides the multiplier. Spribe's version offers 12, 14 or 16 pins in three colours; BGaming's runs from 8 to 16 lines at Low, Normal or High risk.

Crash games such as Spribe's Aviator hand you one decision, made against a clock. In Spribe's words: "When round starts, a scale of multiplier starts growing. Player must cash out before lucky plane flies away."

How the risk is set

In Mines the risk is fully visible: with m mines you can work out every click's chance, as the odds calculator does. The payout is the fair multiplier times 0.97 on every click.

In Plinko each risk level is a fixed table of pockets; the RTP is the average over all pockets. In Spribe's demo configuration the house edge is set at 3, which is where its 97% comes from.

In a crash game you don't see the odds per moment, only the RTP. The deciding factor is when you cash out, and hesitation costs money in a way it doesn't in Mines.

Chicken Road and other crossing games

Crossing games such as InOut's Chicken Road work like Mines laid out in a line: each step raises the multiplier until one step ends the round. InOut lists a 98% RTP, and it lists Australia among its restricted countries, so under the studio's own list the game shouldn't be offered to Australian players.

Which one to try first

If you want to see and weigh the odds before each decision, Mines is the most transparent of the three. Try it in the free demo before any casino version.