How to Play Mines, One Click at a Time
A round of Mines takes about as long as you want it to. You can play it in two clicks or twenty. Below is the full sequence, with the numbers you should understand at each step, so the rules make sense rather than just being a list of buttons.
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Step 1: Set Your Stake
Choose the amount for the round. Bet limits are set by the operator, commonly reported for Spribe Mines as about 0.10 to 100 in the account currency, but your casino's limits are the ones that count.
Pick a stake you would be comfortable losing on the very first click. That is not pessimism. With 10 mines on the board, the first click loses 40% of the time.
Step 2: Choose How Many Mines
This is the most important decision in the game, and you make it before seeing anything. Spribe's selector is widely reported to run from 1 to 24 mines on the 25-tile board. Other studios' Mines games may use different limits and payout tables.
The mine count does two things at once:
- It sets how likely each click is to be safe.
- It sets how fast the multiplier grows when you survive.
| Mines | Safe tiles | First pick safe | Multiplier after 1 star | After 3 stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 24 | 96.0% | 1.01x | 1.10x |
| 3 | 22 | 88.0% | 1.10x | 1.45x |
| 5 | 20 | 80.0% | 1.21x | 1.96x |
| 10 | 15 | 60.0% | 1.62x | 4.90x |
| 20 | 5 | 20.0% | 4.85x | 223.10x |
| 24 | 1 | 4.0% | 24.25x | - |
Multipliers here are calculated as 0.97 divided by the chance of surviving that many picks. They reproduce the first-pick figures reported from the live game; the in-game table is the final word.
Notice the 3-star column. Three stars with 10 mines pays 4.90x, exactly what ten stars with 3 mines pays, and the survival chance is identical too: about 19.8% in both cases. That is not a coincidence. Surviving 3 picks among 10 mines and surviving 10 picks among 3 mines are the same combinatorial event seen from opposite sides. A high mine count simply compresses the same risk into fewer clicks.
Step 3: Start the Round and Flip a Tile
Press the bet button and the board goes live. Click any face-down tile.
- Star: the multiplier on the cash-out button goes up and you decide again.
- Mine: the round ends, the stake is lost, and the board usually reveals where the other mines were.
Which tile you click does not matter. Before your click, every hidden tile carries the same risk. The mines were placed when the round began, and nothing about your previous clicks moves them.
Step 4: Decide After Every Star
After each safe tile you have a choice: click again or cash out. Here is what changes with each click, using a 5-mine board:
| Stars so far | Tiles left | Chance next click is safe | Multiplier if it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 25 | 80.0% | 1.21x |
| 2 | 23 | 78.3% | 1.96x |
| 4 | 21 | 76.2% | 3.32x |
| 6 | 19 | 73.7% | 6.01x |
| 8 | 17 | 70.6% | 11.80x |
The odds of the next click get slightly worse each time, while the prize grows quickly. That pull is what the game is built on. There is no point in a round where the next click becomes a good bet; every click is priced to return 97 cents per dollar on average.
Step 5: Cash Out
Press the cash-out button to collect the stake multiplied by the current figure. The round is over, and the next round gets a new random board.
Two practical notes:
- Cashing out only makes sense after at least one star; before that, the multiplier has not moved.
- Payouts are capped at 10,000x the stake. At high mine counts, the multiplier can exceed that on paper (20 mines, 5 stars works out above 50,000x), but you would only receive the cap. The RTP page shows how that cap lowers your expected return at extreme depths.
Auto Mode: Same Odds, Faster
Many Mines builds include an auto mode. The usual idea is that you mark the tiles you want opened, set how many rounds to run, and sometimes add stop conditions for a win or loss amount. Exact options vary by casino, so read the help screen of the version you are using.
Auto mode does not change the maths. Pre-selecting tiles is no different from clicking them by hand, because tile position never matters. What it changes is speed: dozens of rounds pass in the time one manual round would take. Since each round carries the same 3% expected cost, more rounds per minute means losses arrive faster. If you use it, set a loss limit first.
Mistakes New Players Make
Believing tile patterns matter. Diagonals, corners, "the tile that was safe last time": none of it changes anything.
Increasing the stake after a mine. Doubling up to recover a loss is the martingale idea. On Mines it fails for the same reason it fails everywhere: a run of losses is common, bet limits exist, and the house edge applies to every bigger bet too.
Treating a high mine count as a shortcut. Twenty mines pays 4.85x on the first click because you lose that click 80% of the time.
Assuming a long safe streak means the board is easy. Each star leaves the same mines among fewer tiles. The streak makes the next click riskier, not safer.
Quick Rules Summary
- Set a stake.
- Choose the number of mines.
- Flip tiles; each star raises the multiplier.
- Cash out any time after one star, or lose the stake on a mine.
- Every round uses a fresh board; past boards tell you nothing.
Want to practise these steps without money? Our Mines demo guide covers free play and its limits.
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Responsible gambling: these rules explain how the game works; they are not an invitation to play. Mines has a house edge on every round. Set a budget and a time limit beforehand, never chase losses, and contact a local support service if gambling is causing problems. Only play where it is legal and you are of age.