Each safe pick reduces the number of tiles left. Minefield calculates the probability of surviving the chosen number of picks, takes its reciprocal, applies the 97% return factor and rounds the multiplier down.
What you’ll take away
- The first pick with three mines is safe with probability 22/25.
- Survival probability multiplies the changing odds at every pick.
- The game’s payout cap can end a round before every safe tile is found.
Begin with a finite board
Minefield contains 25 tiles. With three mines, 22 are safe. Before any tile is revealed, a particular pick is safe with probability 22/25, or 88%. After one safe pick, 21 safe tiles remain among 24 unopened tiles. The second pick’s conditional chance is therefore 21/24.
The probability of surviving both picks is the product: (22/25) × (21/24) = 77%. It is not 88% multiplied by 88%, because the board changes after a safe tile is removed. This distinction is the basis of the payout calculation.
Translate probability into payout
A fair gross multiplier for an event with probability p would be 1/p. Minefield applies the return factor 0.97 and floors the result to two decimal places. For one safe pick with three mines, 0.97/0.88 is approximately 1.10227, which becomes 1.10×.
With a 10-credit stake, that 1.10× cash-out returns 11 credits including the stake. The net gain is one credit. Finding a mine before cashing out returns zero and loses the stake. This example describes a fixed cash-out target, not a method for predicting safe tiles.
Check a three-mine example
This table is generated at build time using the same multiplierFor function as the game. The last column is survival probability multiplied by the rounded payout multiplier, before the maximum-win cap or cent rounding of a particular stake.
| Safe picks | Survival probability | Paid multiplier | Expected return |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 88.00% | 1.10× | 96.80% |
| 2 | 77.00% | 1.25× | 96.25% |
| 3 | 66.96% | 1.44× | 96.42% |
| 4 | 57.83% | 1.67× | 96.57% |
| 5 | 49.57% | 1.95× | 96.65% |
The expected return can fall slightly below 97% because the multiplier is rounded down. Displayed probabilities are also rounded for readability; the engine calculation uses full numerical precision before its payout rounding step.
Account for settlement and limits
The game allows cash-out after at least one safe pick. Finding every safe tile settles automatically. Reaching the configured maximum payout also settles the round automatically, so a high-stake scenario can stop at a different point from a low-stake scenario on the same board.
Review the stake, mine count, number of picks and payout ceiling together when evaluating a result. The seed-based layout can be reconstructed after reveal, but its reproducibility does not make the next unrevealed tile predictable. In this demo the seed is held in the browser, which is a separate production limitation.
Sources & scope
Prepared from the Hangar project’s implementation and documentation. Source links point to the inspected revision, so the examples remain traceable as the project changes. These notes describe a software demo, not a certified real-money service.