How crash games work

Key takeaways

• Spaceman’s Game Help describes the end of each round as a random, predetermined value, and bustabit’s results come from a hash chain generated before play.
• A round runs in a fixed order: betting window, bets closed, rising multiplier, cashouts, crash, settlement.
• There is no single “crash game algorithm”: bustabit publishes its result formula, while neither Spaceman’s Game Help nor the provider’s launch press release describes the RNG (random number generator) method.
• Spaceman’s Game Help says a round that ends at 1.00x loses every bet in it but gives no frequency; bustabit says about 1 round in 50 ends that way in its own game.

The crash point is decided before the multiplier moves

The crash point is the multiplier at which a round will end. In the games whose rules are documented, it exists before the round is shown.

The Game Help for Spaceman, a crash game developed by Pragmatic Play, says the multiplier rises to a random, predetermined value at which the round ends. The game generally accepted as the first crash game, bustabit, documents the same idea in a different way: its results come from a long chain of hashes generated from a single secret before play began, and its documentation says results were decided before the player arrived and cannot react to how anyone plays.

The rising multiplier is therefore a reveal: an animation that displays, over time, a result that was already decided. Watching it says nothing about where it will stop. A crash point fixed in advance is also not adjusted during the round for how much is staked or who has cashed out; where a game is offered under a British license, the UK Gambling Commission’s technical standards also do not permit adaptive behavior, in which results compensate for earlier outcomes.

People often ask about “the crash game algorithm”. The more precise term is the RNG (random number generator), and there is no single one: the method differs between games and is not always published. One game, bustabit, publishes the formula that turns a hash into a crash point; Spribe describes a seed-based scheme for Aviator but publishes no hash-to-multiplier formula. For Spaceman, neither the Game Help nor the provider’s launch press release describes the RNG method or the distribution of crash values. How such systems are checked is covered under RNG testing and provably fair verification.

The six phases of a crash game round

A round always runs in the same order. The labels differ between games; the sequence does not.

1. Betting window Before the round, players place or change a stake. This is also when an auto cashout target is set, if one is used.
2. Bets close The window shuts and no new bets join the round. In Spaceman each bet is then processed and shown as accepted or rejected.
3. The multiplier rises The multiplier appears at its starting value, 1.00x in Spaceman and Aviator, and starts to grow. Spaceman’s Game Help says it grows slowly at first, then increasingly faster.
4. Cashouts While the multiplier is rising, each player can cash out. In Spaceman a manual cashout goes to the game server as a request; a pre-set target is applied automatically.
5. Crash The multiplier reaches the crash point and stops. The round is over for everyone at the same moment.
6. Settlement Bets cashed out before the crash are paid at their cashout multiplier. Everything else is lost, and betting for the next round opens.

Spaceman shows these phases as on-screen messages: a countdown to the next game, then BETS CLOSED, then BET ACCEPTED or BET REJECTED. Each state is explained on the page about how a Spaceman round works.

How crash game payouts are calculated

payout = stake × multiplier at cashout

The payout includes the original stake, so the profit is the payout minus the stake. The diagram shows one round, which ends at 2.40x; the table applies the formula to a stake of 10 units in that round.

1. 1cashout at 1.80x
2. 2round ends at 2.40x

Cashout	Settled before the crash?	Payout	Net result
At 1.50x	Yes	15 units	+5 units
At 1.80x	Yes	18 units	+8 units
At 2.00x	Yes	20 units	+10 units
Target of 3.00x, never reached	No	0 units	−10 units

There is no partial credit. A bet aimed at 3.00x in a round that ends at 2.40x returns nothing, exactly like a bet aimed at 100.00x.

A round can also end at once. Spaceman’s Game Help states that if the round ends at 1.00x, all bets in that round are lost; it gives no figure for how often that happens. The documentation for bustabit, which publishes its math, says about 1 round in 50 of that game ends instantly at 1.00x; that is bustabit’s number and should not be read across to any other game.

Why low multipliers are common and high ones rare is the subject of the crash game multiplier explained.

Auto cashout: a target set in advance

A cashout does not have to be a click. Spaceman’s Game Help and Aviator’s in-game rules both describe an auto cashout: a multiplier chosen before the round at which the bet is cashed out automatically if the round gets that far. If the crash point is lower than the target, the bet is lost.

A pre-set target changes how the decision is carried out, not the chance that the round reaches that multiplier. Spaceman’s range and settings are on its auto cashout page, and the Spaceman cashout page explains how a manual request is settled.

What the server decides and what the player decides

Decision	Made by	When
Crash point of the round	The game, by a random draw	Before the multiplier moves
Whether a bet is accepted	Game server	When betting closes
Multiplier at which a manual cashout settles	Game server	When it processes the request
Stake	Player, within the operator’s limits	During the betting window
Auto cashout target	Player	During the betting window
Moment of a manual cashout	Player	While the multiplier is rising

Spaceman’s Game Help makes a statement that fits this split: it is not a game of skill, and the player’s choice has no impact other than deciding when to cash out. What that one choice can and cannot change is covered under cashout timing.

Sources

• UK Gambling Commission — RTS 7: Generation of random outcomes
• Pragmatic Play — Pragmatic Play blasts off with Spaceman (press release, 24 March 2022)
• Spribe — Provably Fair
• Pragmatic Play — Spaceman Game Help, version 1.7 (change log to 10 July 2024), as distributed to licensed operators (cited by name, not linked)
• Spribe, Aviator in-game rules, as reproduced by licensed operators (cited by name, not linked)
• bustabit — published documentation, including its provably fair article (cited by name, not linked)