Plinko is a one-tap peg-board drop game. Your blob slides along the rail holding a chip. Tap anywhere to let go and the chip tumbles through a handful of pegs into a row of buckets riding a conveyor belt at the bottom. Every bucket shows its points. Red busts score nothing and cost you an extra chip. A gold cup roams just above the buckets: drop a chip into it for 10 points and a chip back. The pegs are few and fixed on each board, so paths are readable and the same drop spot always falls the same way. Timing is everything, because the buckets and the cup keep moving. You start with twelve chips, three good drops in a row win one back, and a new board appears every six chips.
How to play Plinko
- Watch your blob slide along the rail with the chip.
- Tap anywhere to drop the chip. It bounces through the pegs and lands in a bucket.
- Each bucket scores its number. Red busts score nothing and cost an extra chip.
- Land in the gold cup for 10 points and a free chip. Three drops of 3 or more in a row also win a chip back.
- Drop before the ring around the chip runs out, or the chip is lost.
Tips to get a high score
- Each board's pegs never move, so a spot that worked once works again. Watch where your first chip goes.
- The buckets keep sliding while the chip falls. Drop when a 5 is coming toward where the chip will land, not when it's already there.
- The cup is worth chasing: 10 points plus a chip keeps the run going.
- Watch out for busts next to the big buckets. Landing right on the edge between them is risky.
- The belt, the cup and the dropper all speed up the longer you last, and more busts slide in.
Reading a board
Each board has four staggered rows of pegs. The first board is a neat grid. Later boards are nudged out of line and have one or two pegs missing per row, which opens up straighter lanes. A new board arrives every six chips.
Chips barely bounce. One that hits a peg rolls off the side it's leaning toward, drifts about half a gap and then falls fairly straight again. A chip that lands dead on top of a peg tips to the right. Gaps where pegs are missing let a chip drop nearly straight down, which makes them the easiest lanes to aim for.
A chip takes a little over a second to reach the buckets. Use your first chip on a new board to see how a lane behaves, then repeat it.
The belt and the gold cup
The belt carries a repeating loop of 12 buckets, more than fit on screen, always sliding to the right. Values are drawn from 1, 2, 3 and 5, with 1s the most common, and every board has at least one 5. Each board also has busts, two at first and up to five later.
The belt keeps moving while your chip falls. Early on that's about half a bucket. At full speed it's one to two buckets. So the bucket you'll land in is the one currently to the left of your landing spot, and further left the faster the belt runs.
The gold cup appears from your third chip. It slides back and forth above the buckets and catches a chip before it reaches them, for 10 points and a chip back. It shrinks to about two-thirds of a bucket's width and speeds up as the run goes on.
Chips in, chips out
You start with 12 chips and can hold up to 15. Every drop costs one. A bust costs one more on top, and running out the drop timer costs the chip you were holding. You get one back from the cup, and one for every third drop in a row worth 3 or more. The cup counts toward that run too, and any 1, 2 or bust resets it.
Difficulty ramps by whichever comes first: 30 chips or about 75 seconds. The dropper, belt and cup all speed up, and your time to drop falls from about 5.5 seconds to just over 3. After 30 chips they keep speeding up, to as much as double.
Score is simply the sum of your buckets and cups, so a long run is about keeping chips. A steady string of 3s and 5s cuts your chip cost by a third, and avoiding busts matters more than chasing the cup.
Daily levels and ghost races
Today's Plinko level is the same for everyone, and you race the ghosts of other players' runs. How daily levels and challenges work.
FAQ
Is Plinko random?
No. The physics is fully deterministic: drop from the same spot on the same board and the chip takes the same path every time. The skill is reading the board and timing the drop against the moving buckets.
How do I get more chips?
Catch a chip in the roaming gold cup, or land three drops worth 3 or more in a row. Each one gives a chip back.
Is it free?
Yes. Every Tapamine game is free to play in your browser with no download and no account.
Does it work on my phone?
Yes. Tapamine is built for phones first: portrait, one thumb, and it works offline after your first visit. It also works with a mouse or the spacebar on a computer.
How do challenges work?
After a run, tap “Challenge a friend” to send a link. Your friend plays the exact same level and races your ghost — a replay of your run — to see who wins.
Add Plinko to your site
Plinko is free to embed on your blog, class page or website. Paste this code:
<iframe src="https://tapamine.com/embed/plinko/" title="Plinko: free one-tap game" width="360" height="640" style="border:0;border-radius:16px;max-width:100%" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; web-share" loading="lazy"></iframe>