Crash games
The crash game multiplier, explained
In the standard model of a crash game multiplier, the chance that a round reaches a value x is roughly the game’s RTP (return to player) divided by x. That one line explains why low multipliers are common and high ones rare — but it is a model, and Pragmatic Play does not publish the distribution Spaceman uses.
Key takeaways
- RTP ÷ x is the only reach probability under which every cashout target has the same expected return, equal to the RTP.
- For its own game, bustabit publishes this relationship (a 1% house edge and a chance of 99 ÷ target percent), and a 2019 paper in Scientific Reports that analyzed online gambling logs, including data from two crash sites, describes the crash point as distributed approximately as an inverse-square law.
- At an assumed RTP of 95.5% — the figure in Spaceman’s Game Help; the provider’s product page shows 95% — the model gives a 47.75% chance of reaching 2.00x and a 9.55% chance of reaching 10.00x (our calculation).
- By bustabit’s own published figures, about 1 round in 50 ends instantly at 1.00x; Spaceman’s Game Help gives no frequency for such rounds.
The crash game multiplier model in one line
A crash round ends at its crash point, so a bet with a cashout target of x pays only if the round is still running when the multiplier gets to x. “The chance of reaching x” and “the chance that a bet aimed at x pays” are the same thing, and the standard model for that chance is short:
chance of reaching x ≈ RTP ÷ x
RTP is the share of all stakes a game pays back over the long run, written here as a decimal: 0.955 for 95.5%. This site calls the formula the constant-RTP model, because its defining property is that the average return is the same at every target.
The examples below assume an RTP of 95.5%. That is the theoretical figure in Spaceman’s Game Help; Pragmatic Play’s product page showed 95% as checked on 2 October 2026 (the sources differ), and at 95% every modeled chance would be slightly lower. At the assumed 95.5%, the modeled chance of reaching 2.00x is 0.955 ÷ 2 = 47.75%, and the chance of reaching 10.00x is 0.955 ÷ 10 = 9.55%.
The round itself — betting window, climb, cashouts, settlement — is covered in how crash games work.
Why the chance falls in proportion to the multiplier
The formula follows from a single requirement: no cashout target should be better or worse than another on average.
A bet of 1 unit aimed at x returns x units when the round reaches x and nothing when it does not. Its expected value is therefore the chance of reaching x multiplied by x. If that product has to equal the RTP for every x, the chance must be RTP ÷ x. No other rule satisfies it.
Checked at four targets at the assumed RTP (figures rounded):
- 1.50x is reached 63.7% of the time, and 63.7% of 1.50 units is about 0.955 units.
- 2.00x is reached 47.75% of the time, and 47.75% of 2.00 units is 0.955 units.
- 10.00x is reached 9.55% of the time, and 9.55% of 10.00 units is 0.955 units.
- 100.00x is reached 0.955% of the time, and 0.955% of 100.00 units is 0.955 units.
The average return per unit staked is 0.955 on every line. The missing 0.045 is the house edge.
Choosing a target changes how often a bet pays and how much it pays, not what it returns on average. That trade-off is the subject of cashout timing.
Where the model comes from
The model rests on two sources, neither of them about Spaceman.
Published numbers from bustabit
The game generally accepted as the first crash game, bustabit, publishes its house edge (1%) and the chance of winning at any target: 99 ÷ target, as a percentage. That is the formula above with an RTP of 99%.
| Target | Published chance of winning |
|---|---|
| 1.01x | 98.02% |
| 1.10x | 90% |
| 2.00x | 49.5% |
| 10.00x | 9.9% |
| 100.00x | 0.99% |
The documentation for bustabit draws its own conclusion from these figures: low targets win often but small, high targets win rarely but big, and neither gets around the house edge.
An academic description
Wang and Pleimling analyzed online gambling logs, including betting data from two crash sites, in a paper published in Scientific Reports in 2019. They describe the crash point as distributed approximately as an inverse-square law, and note that under a strict inverse-square law the chance of winning equals one divided by the odds chosen.
An inverse-square law for the crash point and a reach chance proportional to 1 ÷ x are two descriptions of the same shape. Their data does not include Spaceman or Aviator.
The model at an assumed RTP of 95.5%
The table applies the formula at the same assumed RTP. The probabilities are our calculation.
| Multiplier target | Modeled chance of reaching it | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| 1.10x | 86.82% | 1 round in about 1.2 |
| 1.50x | 63.67% | 1 round in about 1.6 |
| 2.00x | 47.75% | 1 round in about 2.1 |
| 3.00x | 31.83% | 1 round in about 3.1 |
| 5.00x | 19.10% | 1 round in about 5.2 |
| 10.00x | 9.55% | 1 round in about 10 |
| 20.00x | 4.78% | 1 round in about 21 |
| 50.00x | 1.91% | 1 round in about 52 |
| 100.00x | 0.955% | 1 round in about 105 |
Keep in mind
The Game Help says Spaceman’s crash value is random and predetermined, and neither it nor Pragmatic Play’s launch press release describes the distribution or the RNG (random number generator) algorithm. The table shows how a game with that RTP would behave if it followed the standard shape. None of its figures is a documented Spaceman frequency.
The explorer applies the same formula, and nothing else, to a target between 1.01x and 5000x and an assumed RTP of your choosing.
Multiplier model explorer
A simplified model for illustration: chance = RTP ÷ target. It describes long-run averages, not what any single round will do, and it is not a published distribution for any specific game.
The facts the Game Help does state — the 1.00x start, the 5000x maximum and the payout cap — are set out on the Spaceman multiplier page.
Why low multipliers are common and high ones rare
Because the chance is inversely proportional to the target, every doubling of the target halves the chance of reaching it. At the assumed RTP: 47.75% at 2.00x, about 23.9% at 4.00x, about 11.9% at 8.00x.
Three consequences follow, all of them our calculation under the model:
- The halfway point is low. The chance of reaching x is 50% when x is about 1.91x (0.955 ÷ 0.5). Half of all modeled rounds end below that.
- Rounds cluster near the bottom. The chance that a round ends between two multipliers is the difference between their reach chances. Between 2.00x and 3.00x that is 47.75% − 31.8%, or about 15.9%. Between 10.00x and 20.00x it is 9.55% − 4.78%, or about 4.8%, for a band ten times as wide.
- The tail is long but thin. Reaching 100.00x is modeled at 0.955%, roughly 1 round in 105.
These are long-run frequencies. They say nothing about order: a 1-in-105 event can turn up twice in ten rounds or not at all in three hundred, and past rounds do not shift the chances. How wide those swings are is covered under volatility and risk.
The instant-crash floor: where the house edge sits
At the lowest possible target, the chance of reaching it is not 100%. In bustabit, the published chance of winning at 1.01x is 98.02%. The remaining 1.98% — about 1 round in 50, as bustabit states — are rounds that end instantly at 1.00x, before any cashout can pay.
That floor is how the house edge is collected in the model. Above it, each target is priced so that waiting longer neither gains nor loses on average; the edge comes from the rounds in which every bet loses whatever its target. The result formula that bustabit publishes has this built in, as described on the provably fair page.
The 1.98% is larger than bustabit’s 1% house edge because results are rounded down to two decimals, so rounds that would otherwise end just above 1.00x are counted as instant ones too. That is our reading of the published formula.
These are bustabit’s figures only. For Spaceman, the Game Help confirms that a round can end at 1.00x and that all bets in that round are then lost, but it gives no frequency, and this site does not publish an estimate of that instant crash rate.
Limits of the model
- Rounding. Crash points are rounded — bustabit’s published formula rounds down to two decimals — so real frequencies sit slightly off the smooth curve.
- Caps. A maximum multiplier cuts off the tail. Spaceman’s Game Help sets the maximum at 5000x, where bets still in the game are paid automatically, so the formula cannot hold beyond that point.
- Games can differ. Nothing obliges a game to follow this shape exactly. Only a published formula, such as bustabit’s, or a disclosed distribution settles what a particular game does.
Sources
- Wang and Pleimling, Online Gambling of Pure Chance: Wager Distribution, Risk Attitude, and Anomalous Diffusion, Scientific Reports 9, 14712 (2019)
- Pragmatic Play — Pragmatic Play blasts off with Spaceman (press release, 24 March 2022)
- Pragmatic Play — Spaceman product page (checked 2 October 2026)
- Pragmatic Play — Spaceman Game Help, version 1.7 (change log to 10 July 2024), as distributed to licensed operators (cited by name, not linked)
- bustabit — published documentation, including its provably fair article (cited by name, not linked)