Mines odds and payout chart, worked out
You choose how many mines hide under the 25 tiles, anywhere from 1 to 24, and then start clicking. Each safe tile pushes the multiplier up, and one mine takes the whole bet. The payout is simply one over your odds of getting that far, with the house edge taken off the top. Three mines and five clean picks, for example, comes in about half the time and pays close to x2.
How the multiplier is built
The board doesn't change while you play. If there are 3 mines, your first pick is safe 22 times out of 25. The second pick is safe 21 times out of the 24 tiles left, and so on. Multiply those fractions together and you have the chance of reaching that pick alive.
A game with no edge would pay exactly one divided by that chance. Casino versions shave a small slice off. A 99% RTP, which is the figure crypto casinos commonly show for their own Mines game, means every multiplier on the chart is the fair number times 0.99.
| Mines | Picks | Chance to survive | Fair multiplier | At 99% RTP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | 80.00% | x1.25 | x1.24 |
| 3 | 1 | 88.00% | x1.14 | x1.12 |
| 3 | 5 | 49.57% | x2.02 | x2.00 |
| 3 | 10 | 19.78% | x5.05 | x5.00 |
| 5 | 3 | 49.57% | x2.02 | x2.00 |
| 5 | 10 | 5.65% | x17.69 | x17.52 |
| 10 | 3 | 19.78% | x5.05 | x5.00 |
| 10 | 10 | 0.09% | x1,088.50 | x1,077.61 |
| 20 | 2 | 3.33% | x30.00 | x29.70 |
| 24 | 1 | 4.00% | x25.00 | x24.75 |
Own calculation: chance = C(25 − mines, picks) ÷ C(25, picks). Script in our repo (growth6/daten/phase2/b1a/mines.py), checked 2026-11-12.
Full chart, first five picks
| Mines | Pick 1 | Pick 2 | Pick 3 | Pick 4 | Pick 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | x1.03 | x1.08 | x1.12 | x1.18 | x1.24 |
| 2 | x1.08 | x1.17 | x1.29 | x1.41 | x1.56 |
| 3 | x1.12 | x1.29 | x1.48 | x1.71 | x2.00 |
| 5 | x1.24 | x1.56 | x2.00 | x2.58 | x3.39 |
| 7 | x1.38 | x1.94 | x2.79 | x4.09 | x6.14 |
| 10 | x1.65 | x2.83 | x5.00 | x9.17 | x17.52 |
| 15 | x2.47 | x6.60 | x18.98 | x59.64 | x208.72 |
| 20 | x4.95 | x29.70 | x227.70 | x2,504.70 | x52,598.70 |
Values are 0.99 divided by the survival chance, rounded to two decimals. Your casino's own chart is the one that counts. Open the game info and compare a few cells before you play.
Why 3 mines and 5 picks equals 5 mines and 3 picks
3 mines with 5 picks pays exactly what 5 mines with 3 picks pays, x2.00 on a 99% chart, and most people take it for a misprint the first time they spot it. Think of the 25 tiles as two piles, the ones you open and the ones hiding mines. The piles can't overlap, and it makes no difference which one you call which, so both settings land on 49.57%.
You can use it as a quick check. If a chart shows different numbers for those two cells, something other than plain odds is going on, and it's worth asking the casino why.
What the house edge costs you per round
The edge doesn't grow with the number of mines or the number of picks. Whatever you choose, the expected return of a round stays at the RTP. At 99%, a $10 round costs 10 cents on average over a very long run.
What changes is how that average is reached. One mine and one pick wins 96 rounds out of 100 for a tiny gain. Twenty mines and two picks wins about 3 rounds in 100 and pays almost x30 when it does. Same price, very different ride, and the second one can empty a balance quickly.
Is there a Mines strategy that works?
No pattern of tiles beats the odds. The mine positions are fixed when the round starts and every unopened tile is equally likely to hold one, so corners, diagonals and "hot" spots are all the same bet.
The choices that matter are the ones you set before you click: how many mines, when you cash out, and how much each round costs. Pick those so a losing streak doesn't hurt. Tools sold as Mines predictors can't see a provably fair outcome before it happens, so treat them as a scam.
Mines and provably fair checks
Crypto casino Mines games usually come with a server seed, a client seed and a nonce for every round. After the round you can feed those into a verifier and see where the mines were placed. It's worth doing once, mostly so you know where the button is.
Checking a round takes about a minute. Once you rotate your seed pair, the casino shows the old server seed in plain text. Paste it into the verifier with your client seed and the round's nonce and you get the mine positions back, tile for tile. If they don't match what you saw on the board, you've caught something worth a support ticket.
18+. Mines is a game of chance with a built-in house edge, and no setting removes it. If you play, set a budget first. Help: Responsible gaming. Not affiliated with Stake. Names belong to their owners.
Questions
How are Mines multipliers calculated?
Take the chance of surviving all your picks, which is the product of safe tiles over remaining tiles for each pick. The fair multiplier is one divided by that chance. Multiply by the RTP, for example 0.99, to get the paid multiplier.
What is the house edge in Mines?
Crypto casinos commonly list 1% (99% RTP) for their own Mines game. Check the info panel of the version you play, since some newer originals list 2%.
What are the odds of hitting a mine on the first pick?
Number of mines divided by 25. With 3 mines that's 12%, with 10 mines it's 40%, with 24 mines it's 96%.
Is it better to play with few or many mines?
The expected loss per round is the same at the same RTP. Few mines means frequent small wins, many mines means rare big wins and faster swings.
Do Mines predictors work?
No. In a provably fair game the mine positions are fixed by seeds before the round and can't be read in advance. Predictor apps are a common scam.
Sources
- Stake: Mines game page (Wayback, 25 Oct 2026) · current page on stake.com. RTP 99.00%, house edge 1.00%; the same page lists Moles and Pump at 98.00% RTP. The live page returns 403 to our fetcher, so the archived copy is cited. Checked 12 November 2026
- Stake: provably fair game events (Wayback, 19 Jul 2025). Mines: up to 24 mine positions drawn without repeats (Fisher-Yates), plotted left to right, top to bottom Checked 12 November 2026
18+ · Play responsibly · gamblingtherapy.org