How to Play Crash Games

The shared curve is the format most players picture first: one multiplier, a table full of players and rounds that run on a clock. Every round passes through the same five stages.

1. The betting window. A countdown runs between rounds. A stake placed now is for the round about to start, and most games let it be withdrawn until the countdown ends.
2. The take-off. The multiplier leaves the stake itself behind and climbs, slowly at first and then faster. From this moment stakes are locked in.
3. The flight. The bet button has turned into a cash-out button that shows what the bet would collect if pressed now. Other players' exits scroll past in a side list; they are their own choices and alter nothing in the round.
4. The bust. At a point settled when the round was created, the climb ends and the animation with it: the plane flies off, the rocket bursts, the balloon pops. Any stake still riding is lost.
5. The settlement. Winning bets are credited at the multiplier where each one left, the bust point joins the results strip, and a new window opens.

A solo curve keeps the flight and the exit and drops the crowd and the clock. Pressing bet launches a multiplier that belongs to that bet alone, and the round ends at the bust or at the cash-out; another begins only when the player presses again.

That puts the pace in the player's hands. Rounds come as quickly as they are started, and solo games often pair the curve with an automatic mode that repeats the bet, so a few minutes can hold more rounds than a long spell at a shared table, and the amount wagered per hour climbs with them.

Step games swap the curve for a path. The screen shows a row of lanes, tiles or tower floors, each marked with the multiplier it pays, and a difficulty setting chosen before the start decides how risky each step is. The player advances one step at a time: a successful step lifts the bet to the next rung, a failed one ends the round and takes the stake.

An exit is allowed between steps and never during one, which turns the game into a string of separate yes-or-no choices. The ladder and the difficulty level hold the whole of the odds, and they belong to that game alone: the chances worked out for curve games on these pages do not describe a step game, so its rules screen is where the worth of each rung is read.

A target game has no flight at all. The player sets a target multiplier and a stake and presses once, and a result appears immediately: at or above the target, the bet pays the target; below it, the stake is gone. Nothing happens between the bet and the result, so there is nothing to react to and no button to press late.

The choice a curve player makes during the round is made here before it starts, in the same way an automatic cash-out would make it. Each studio target game states its own return on its rules screen.

Names and layouts vary between studios. Step and target games use the stake, bet and automatic rows.

A manual cash-out is a message from the player's screen to the game's server. The server, not the screen, records the multiplier at which it arrived, and the curve keeps climbing while the message travels. On a steady connection the gap is too short to notice. On a mobile network, or at the moment many players press together, the paid multiplier can differ from the one showing when the button went down, and a click aimed just before a bust can land just after it.

An automatic cash-out closes that gap. The target is lodged with the server before the round begins, so the bet is settled at exactly that multiplier, or lost if the curve never gets there.

The key point: An automatic exit pays the precise multiplier set in advance. A manual one pays whatever the server has reached when the click arrives, and a slow connection can carry that past the bust.

Games with a second panel run two separate bets on one curve, each with its own stake and its own exit, by hand or automatic. A common pattern pairs a low target that comes in often with a high one left to run. The first exit does not shelter the second; each bet is settled on its own.

A partial cash-out, offered by some games, takes a share of a single bet, often half, at the current multiplier and leaves the remainder in flight with its own chance to go further. In effect it splits one bet into two with different exit points, which is what the second panel does with two separate stakes.

Neither feature alters the return on each unit staked, since every part of the money is priced like any other exit on the same curve. They change how a round tends to finish, and two panels double what rides on it; how often a two-bet round ends behind is calculated in the strategy guide.

In short: A second bet or a partial cash-out divides the money between two exit points. The return per unit staked stays where the game sets it, and only the pattern of results moves.

Most curve games print the latest bust points in a row above or beside the curve, usually colored by size. It is a record of what has happened, handy for confirming that a round ended where the screen showed and for seeing how often low results turn up.

A record is not a forecast, though. Each round is settled independently of the rounds before it, so a run of low busts does not bring a high one closer. Why streaks in the strip look like patterns is taken up in the strategy guide, and the tools sold as a way to read it are examined on the crash predictors page. For provably fair games, how a round is fixed in advance and checked afterwards is explained in the provably fair guide.