1. Primary sources only
A figure goes on the site only if it’s published by the company that makes the game: the provider’s game page, its official rules screen, or its free demo. Reviews on other sites, forum posts and casino marketing copy don’t count as sources, however often they repeat a number. Every source is listed at the bottom of the page that uses it, with the date we checked it.
Online casinos can’t be linked directly from our sources, because they are offshore and not licensed in Australia; where a casino’s own page is the source, we name the address as plain text.
2. Dates on everything
Providers update games and casinos change limits. Each page shows two dates: when it was first published and when its figures were last checked. The second date moves only when we actually re-check the sources, never for a spelling fix.
3. Payout tables checked against the RTP
A Plinko payout table and its RTP are two views of the same thing. For a board with n rows, the chance of a ball landing in pocket k is C(n, k) ÷ 2ⁿ, the binomial distribution. Multiply each pocket’s chance by its multiplier, add them up, and you get the theoretical return to player.
For every table we publish, we run that sum. If it doesn’t land on the provider’s published RTP (to within rounding), we’ve mistyped something or the provider runs a different version, and the table stays off the site until we know which.
4. 1,000-ball simulations
The simulator drops balls with your browser’s random number generator, using the same provider tables. We use it to show two things:
- how closely 1,000 drops follow the exact odds (the middle pockets fill fast, the edges rarely);
- how far a short session can drift from the long-run RTP, in both directions.
A simulation is a model of the maths, not a copy of any casino’s random number generator, and it can’t predict a real drop.
What we don’t do
- We don’t publish a “winning strategy”. No choice of rows or risk changes the RTP of a version; it changes only how results are spread.
- We don’t give scores for casinos we haven’t checked from an Australian connection.
- We don’t let a commission change a figure, a table or the order of a list. How the site makes money is on the disclosure page.
When something changes
If a provider changes a table or RTP, we update the page, re-run the check in step 3 and move the “last checked” date. Found a figure that’s out of date? Email hello@plinkoinaustralia.com.