Pump: How It Works, Odds and Payouts

Pump is a cash-out game with a balloon. Each pump inflates the balloon and raises your multiplier, but every pump has a small fixed chance of popping it, which ends the round and loses the bet. Between pumps you can tap Cash out to keep what you have.

Coins are virtual and have no cash value. If you like Road Hop: How It Works, Odds and Payouts, Pump is similar in spirit: one repeated risk and one decision, when to stop.

How a round works

1. Choose a risk level: Easy, Medium, Hard or Extreme.
2. Pump. Each pump is either safe or it pops the balloon.
3. A safe pump raises the multiplier.
4. Cash out between pumps, or keep going until the balloon is full.

All of a round's pump results are drawn on the server when the round starts, so tapping faster or slower has no effect.

Risk levels

Easy has the gentlest pops but needs 50 safe pumps to reach even 7.46x. Extreme pops one pump in four, yet its top prize is the largest of the four because the climb is so steep.

Odds and payout table

After n safe pumps the chance of survival is (1 - pop)^n, and the multiplier is 0.97 divided by that.

Multiplying a cell's multiplier by the chance of reaching it gives 0.97 every time, so the whole table has the same return to player. Rules shared by all games are on the odds page.

A worked example

You pump a Medium balloon with a 150-coin bet. Each pump is safe 92% of the time. After 10 pumps the chance of still being alive is 0.92^10 = 43.4%, and the multiplier is 0.97 / 0.4344 = 2.23x, worth 334 coins. You may stop there with 334. Or you may pump 10 more: the chance of surviving all 10 additional pumps from there is 0.92^10 = 43.4%, and the multiplier would be 5.14x (771 coins). Cashing out at 10 pumps or aiming for 20 both average 97 coins per 100 staked; the second path just loses more often.

What differs from the other step games

Pump has a constant risk and no choice of tile or door, which makes it the simplest cash-out game after Coin Flip: How It Works, Odds and Payouts. Balloon Pop: How It Works, Odds and Payouts shares the balloon theme but is a different game: it has a visible board of prize tickets and duds. The family overview is Cash-Out Ladder Games: Road Hop, Tower and More, and How cash-out games work explains the pricing.

Max win and caps

Extreme's 305.87x is the biggest Pump payout, far under the game-wide limits of 50,000x the bet and 250,000,000 coins per round.

Tips that hold up

• Pop chance does not grow. A balloon at pump 25 is exactly as likely to pop on the next pump as a balloon at pump 1. Fear of an "overdue" pop is a myth, as is a belief that the balloon is "safe now".
• Choose a level, not a system. Each level returns 97%. Easy gives long smooth runs, Extreme gives rare large wins.
• Know the stopping point before the round starts. Deciding in advance, for example "cash out at 2x", avoids the urge to push one more pump.
• Do not expect the top prize. On Hard the full balloon is a 1-in-92 round.

Play with limits

Pump is easy to repeat, and each round is short. Set a limit before you start and see Play Safely in Cashout Arcade: Limits and Breaks for tools. Cashout Arcade is for adults aged 18+, uses virtual coins and has no real-money prizes.