Skyscraper: how it plays, odds and payouts

Skyscraper is a cash-out game where you build a tower floor by floor. Each normal floor grows your payout by 4%, every fifth floor is a wind gust that grows it by 60%, and a floor that does not hold ends the round. Stop whenever you like by tapping Cash out (locking in the multiplier you hold).

How a round works

1. Set your bet and start. Floors go up one after another on a running clock, the first within about two seconds.
2. A normal floor multiplies the pay by 1.04. Floor 5, 10, 15 and so on up to 40 are gusts that multiply it by 1.6.
3. Whether each floor holds is decided on our servers when the round starts; the building shows it a moment after.
4. Cash out at any time after floor 1 to take the pay of the last floor that held.
5. If floor 40 holds, the round pays 150.67x automatically after about 37 seconds.

Pay and survival chance

The rows are the gust floors, where the climbing is steepest. Each normal floor in between multiplies the pay by 1.04. Pay shown is the multiplier of the bet.

Worked example

Bet 100 coins and cash out after floor 10. The pay is 1.04 to the power of 8, times 1.6 twice (floors 5 and 10), which is 3.5x, so you receive 350 coins. The tower is still standing at that point in 27.7% of rounds.

Look at how much one gust costs you. The chance of the tower standing after floor 4 is 82.9%; after floor 5 it is 51.9%. So the gust floor alone removes 37.5% of the surviving rounds, and in exchange it lifts the pay from 1.17x to 1.87x. A normal floor removes only 3.8% of rounds (1 minus 1/1.04) and adds only 4%. The trade-off is the same 97% either way: more reward for more risk.

Max win and limits

The top of the tower pays 150.67x the bet, in 1 round in about 155. The game-wide limits (50,000x the bet, 250,000,000 coins per round) are not reachable. Volatility is high: typical rounds end in the first ten floors, and the big numbers only appear in the last third of the building.

What matters and what does not

• Treating gust floors as dangerous: they are. If you want to bank something, the moment just after a gust holds is when the pay jumps.
• Counting floors: useful only to know a gust is coming. It does not predict whether it will hold.
• Streaks: a tower that collapsed early last round tells you nothing about the next. Each round is drawn separately.

There is no cash-out plan that returns more than 97% over time. If you want long, calm climbs, stop right after a gust. If you want rare large numbers, ride the tower further.

How it differs from other cash-out games

Domino Run adds fixed amounts to the pay, while Skyscraper compounds a percentage per floor, which is why its top is nine times higher. For how the same idea works in the classic curve game, see Crash and how crash-style games work.

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.