Snowball: how it plays, odds and payouts

Snowball is a cash-out game in which a snowball rolls down a hill. Every roll makes it bigger, and every roll adds more than the last, so the payout speeds up like an avalanche. A tree at the bottom of any roll ends the round and the bet; tap Cash out (locking in the multiplier you hold) to keep what you have.

How a round works

1. Set your bet and start. The ball begins to roll.
2. A roll happens every 0.6 seconds. Roll 1 multiplies the pay by 1.015, roll 2 by 1.03, roll 3 by 1.045 and so on: roll k multiplies by 1 + 0.015 x k.
3. Tap Cash out at any time after the first roll to be paid the multiplier reached.
4. If the ball hits the tree on a roll before you tap, the bet is lost. The result of each roll is fixed on our servers when the round starts, and the screen shows it a moment later.
5. After roll 40 (about 24 seconds in) the round pays out by itself.

Pay and survival chance

For example, 2.19x after roll 10 is reached in 44.3% of rounds, but 17.62x after roll 20 in only 5.5%.

Worked example

Bet 100 coins and cash out after roll 20. The pay is 17.62x, so you receive 1,762 coins. Only 1 in 18 balls gets that far.

The reason for the sharp drop is that each roll is a fair bet. Apart from the first roll, the chance of making roll k is 1 / (1 + 0.015 x k), because the pay grows by exactly that factor. Here is how that looks:

At roll 1 the danger is small and the gain is tiny (the first roll is slightly riskier than the formula alone suggests, because it carries the 3% house edge). At roll 40 the gain is 60% in one roll, and the ball is 37.5% likely to hit the tree.

Max win and limits

The top, 31,832.83x the bet, is below the game-wide limit of 50,000x the bet and 250,000,000 coins per round, so only the 250,000,000-coin limit could ever apply, and only to a very large bet. Reaching roll 40 is a 1-in-33,000 event. Volatility is very high: most balls stop below roll 20.

What matters and what does not

• When you stop: the only choice you have. Rolls 1 to 10 each carry a small risk for a small gain; rolls 30 to 40 are much more dangerous per step.
• Counting rolls: the clock is fixed at 0.6 seconds a roll, so you always know which roll is coming. It tells you how risky the next roll is, not whether it will hold.
• Previous balls: no memory. A ball that went far last time does not make the next one more or less likely to.

The return is the same 97% at any stopping point, so choosing to stop at roll 10 does not beat stopping at roll 30 on average. It simply makes wins more frequent and smaller. For the underlying idea read how crash-style games work.

How it differs from other cash-out games

Home Run also multiplies the pay on each event, but with different hit sizes. Snowball is the cleanest "accelerating growth" game in the lobby: no tiers and no hidden bonuses, only a growth rate that increases by 0.015 each roll. Crash is the continuous-curve original.

Play with limits

Coins are virtual, have no cash value and cannot be withdrawn or exchanged for prizes. For adults (18+), for entertainment. Decide how long to play before you begin; see playing safely in Cashout Arcade.