Pinball: how it plays, odds and payouts

Pinball in Cashout Arcade is a one-ball game with two separate dice: how well the ball scores, and which ramp lane is lit. The score decides a base payout, the lane multiplies it, and the product is multiplied by your bet. A drained ball scores nothing, and nothing can rescue it.

How a round works

1. Set your bet and tap to launch. The ball is plunged into the table.
2. The server draws a score band for the ball's run: drain, bumpers, slingshots, targets, spinner, multiball or jackpot.
3. Separately it draws the ramp lane that will multiply that score: x1, x2, x3 or x5.
4. Your bet is multiplied by the score band's pay times the lane. A drain is 0 whichever lane lights.

The result is decided before the ball moves. What you watch is the reveal, and none of the flippers' timing changes it.

Score bands

Ramp lane multiplier

On average the lane multiplies by 1.46, and the average score pays about 0.664x, so the product is the 96.98% return. Hit rate (anything above 0x) is 45.6%; more than the bet comes back in 20.3% of rounds.

Worked example

Suppose the ball scores a multiball (8x) and the lit lane is x3. The round pays 8 x 3 = 24x, so a bet of 100 coins returns 2,400 coins. The chance of that exact pair is 1.44% x 7%, about 1 in 994.

A more ordinary round: the ball scores on the targets (1.5x) and the lane is x2. That pays 3x. It happens 1.7% of the time (8.63% x 20%). And the same targets score on the x1 lane pays only 1.5x, so the lane matters roughly as much as the score for the middle results.

Max win and limits

The top is a jackpot score on the x5 lane: 40 x 5 = 200x the bet. The chance is 0.29% x 3% = 1 in 11,592. This is far below the game-wide limit of 50,000x the bet and 250,000,000 coins per round. Volatility is high: more than half of the balls pay nothing, and the high-end results come from the rare score-times-lane pairs.

What matters and what does not

• Flipper timing, nudges, plunger power: none of it. The ball is a replay of the server's draw.
• Which lane looks lit before the ball launches: nothing is known until the reveal.
• Bet size: scales the coin amounts only.

There is no strategy beyond choosing a bet that suits you. Longer sessions will drift towards 96.98%, but any short session can be far above or far below, which is what "high volatility" means; see volatility explained.

How it differs from other instant games

Bowling is the gentle neighbour: its top prize is only 4x and most frames pay something. Pinball is the opposite, with a long dry stretch between spikes. For a calmer, sum-of-parts game, try Coin Pusher.

Play with limits

Coins are virtual, have no cash value and cannot be withdrawn or exchanged for prizes. For adults (18+), for entertainment. Set a time limit before you play; see playing safely in Cashout Arcade.