Cash or Crash Live from Evolution

Cash or Crash Live, joined the ever growing stable of Evolution live game shows in September 2021.

Here at Livedealer.org we’ve made no secret of the fact that game shows are not exactly our favourite game category. We’re swimming against the tide here because players absolutely love them. Have from the get-go.

From inception, game shows have ranked by player numbers as the most popular live games and their popularity shows no sign of abating. So they will keep on coming. But that doesn’t mean we have to like them.

Why the dislike? Two reasons.

They’re usually mindless. You place your bet and wait for the outcome. Not much about strategy. More about dumb luck. All of music, presenter banter, animations or fancy contraptions can distract from this. But not change the fact.

Secondly, and more important – the theoretical returns applying to these games are more often than not far inferior to the classic games like baccarat and blackjack.

It has to be said this second reason cannot be applied to Cash or Crash Live.

This game has a theoretical return of 99.59% for bets that do not breach the payout cap (more on this below). That puts Cash or Crash right up there with flawless basic strategy blackjack! Reason enough to give it a go.

How to Play Cash or Crash

Easy (it is after all a game show).

Betting begins with a single bet choice…how much you wish to wager.

From there little green or red balls are randomly drawn determining the fate of the Cash or Crash blimp:

• green ball = the blimp rises, as does your payout multiple.
• red ball = the blimp crashes, as does your bet

A red ball ends the game, and you bet is lost.

But each time a green ball is drawn, your payout multiple increases. There are 20 levels with 50,000x being the top possible payout.

Also each time a green ball is drawn you have the choice to take your money and run at that payout level. You can TAKE ALL. You can TAKE HALF and keep the other half in the game. The default position if you take no action is to CONTINUE and let it all ride.

Of course the further the game progresses, the less green balls are left to be drawn so the chances of a red increase. Small green and red blimps at the current payout line keep you abreast of the percentage of green and red balls remaining.

Luckily in the above game, TAKE ALL was chosen just before a red ball was drawn, preserving a 3.1x payout.

The Gold Ball

Amongst all the red and green balls there is one gold ball. It is friendly. When the gold ball is drawn you are given a one time shield from a game ending crash on the next drawn red ball, and a shield symbol is displayed to show this protection.

When the next red ball is drawn you remain in the game but your protection is now gone but payouts at every level on subsequent green ball draws are increased.

The increase becomes more significant at higher levels. At level 20 (last level) the payout before a shield is broken is 18,000x. After a broken shield it is 50,000x – the games top multiple.

To see payouts at all levels, check the complete house rules here.

Theoretical return

As noted above, happy to report that the return to player rate for this game is a very healthy 99.59%.

However, the maximum payout for any game round is 500,000 meaning at higher bet amounts and top payout levels your TAKE ALL or TAKE HALF choices could leave some winnings behind. As long as you are not troubling the payout cap, which should be most players, this is will not be an issue.