Wire Cut: how it plays, odds and payouts

Wire Cut is a bomb-defusing ladder. A panel of 16 wires hides a few live wires that blow the bomb and one defuse wire that wins the round with a bonus. Every other wire is safe and grows your take a little more each time you snip one. You decide when to stop with Cash out (lock in the multiplier you hold).

How a round works

1. Pick a mode: 2, 4 or 6 live wires. Set your bet and start.
2. Snip a wire. The panel was settled on our servers when you started, so which wire you choose does not matter.
3. A safe wire grows your take. A live wire blows the bomb and loses the bet.
4. The defuse wire ends the round immediately and multiplies your take by the number of live wires.
5. Tap Cash out between snips to keep the take, or keep snipping. If the only wires left are live ones and the defuse wire, the round ends and pays the take.

Modes

Each cell shows the chance of that outcome on the very first snip and the factor it applies to your take. Every later snip works the same way with fewer wires on the panel.

Your take begins at 0.97x rather than 1x because of the 3% house edge, and the best results are that start multiplied by the safe snips plus the defuse bonus.

Worked example: two live wires

You start at 0.97. The first safe snip multiplies the take by 14/13 (1.0769), so you hold 1.0446x. The second safe snip multiplies it by 13/12 and the third by 12/11, so after three safe snips the take is 1.2345x. The chance of making three safe snips in a row is 13/16 x 12/15 x 11/14, or 51.1%.

On the fourth snip there are 13 wires left: 10 safe, 2 live and the defuse wire. A safe wire (76.9%) multiplies by 1.1, the defuse wire (7.7%) multiplies by 2 and ends the round at 2.469x, and a live wire (15.4%) loses it all. Check the fairness: 0.769 x 1.1 + 0.077 x 2 = 1.0. Every snip has an average factor of exactly 1, so the take is the same on average whenever you stop.

Max win and limits

The best case in each mode is the defuse wire arriving when the take has already grown: 13.58x, 23.28x or 29.1x. These are far below the game-wide limits of 50,000x the bet and 250,000,000 coins per round. Volatility is medium. The defuse wire turns a normal grind into a lottery ticket: a 1-in-16 chance on the first snip, rising slightly as the panel empties.

What matters and what does not

• Which wire you cut: nothing. Wire colours and positions are decoration.
• Mode: controls the pace. With 2 live wires you can snip many times with low risk; with 6 live wires one or two snips decide the round.
• When you stop: the one real choice, and it changes the shape of results, not the average.

Because each snip is a fair bet, no sequence of snips returns more than 97% over time. See how Mines-style games work for a related ladder where the odds also come from a fixed hidden layout.

How it differs from other cash-out games

Mines has only bad tiles to avoid and a hand-picked mine count; Wire Cut adds a single winning wire that ends the round with a multiplier. Potion Brew lets you choose the risk of each step, while here the risk of a snip is set by the panel.

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.