Next Step is a tile-walking game where you move across a board one step at a time, choosing when to cash out. The difficulty you select changes everything: Easy hides just one mine across a longer board, while Daredevil hides ten mines in a much shorter run. Higher difficulties pay more per step but end sooner and give you fewer chances to reach those payouts, which is why someone might pick Easy for a steadier climb or Daredevil for the dream of a massive multiplier.
At a glance
| Return to player | 96% (Lower than the other originals — worth knowing before you play.) |
| What you set | Easy / Medium / Hard / Daredevil |
| Best multiplier | 3,138,009.60× (a full Daredevil run) |
Open Next Step at Bethropic — a 0 bet plays the game for free, no download.
How it works
Step forward across a 25-tile board one tile at a time. Harder difficulties hide more mines and shorten the run, but pay far more per step. Cash out whenever you like.
The trap most players fall into is the first step on Easy. It pays exactly 1.00×, meaning you've already risked your bet for no gain. The ladder only starts to work in your favour from step two onwards. On the harder modes, the survival odds get tighter quickly—Medium gives you an 88% chance on each step, Hard drops to 80%, and Daredevil sits at just 60%—so the early steps might feel safe, but the math compounds fast. Think about where you'd actually cash out before you play, not after you've already stepped forward.
What it pays
| Difficulty | Mines | Steps | Survives one step | Multiplier at each step |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 1 | 24 | 96% | 1.00 1.04 1.09 1.14 1.20 1.26 1.33 1.41 1.50 1.60 1.71 1.85 2.00 2.18 2.40 2.67 3.00 3.43 4.00 4.80 6.00 8.00 12.00 24.00 |
| Medium | 3 | 22 | 88% | 1.09 1.25 1.43 1.66 1.94 2.28 2.71 3.25 3.94 4.85 6.07 7.72 10.04 13.38 18.40 26.29 39.43 63.09 110.40 220.80 552.00 2208.00 |
| Hard | 5 | 20 | 80% | 1.20 1.52 1.94 2.51 3.29 4.39 5.95 8.24 11.68 16.98 25.48 39.63 64.40 110.40 202.40 404.80 910.80 2428.80 8500.80 51004.80 |
| Daredevil | 10 | 15 | 60% | 1.60 2.74 4.85 8.90 16.98 33.97 71.71 161.35 391.86 1044.96 3134.87 10972.06 47545.60 285273.60 3138009.60 |
The odds behind it
- The first step on Easy pays 1.00×, so it carries the risk without adding anything — the ladder only starts paying from the second step.
The 96% return to player means the house keeps 4% of all money wagered over time. On Easy, where you have twenty-four steps to chase, that return is better than on the other difficulties, but it's still lower than the other original games in the casino. The headline multiplier of over three million is real, but it requires a perfect run on Daredevil with no mines hit—something the 60% survival rate per step makes extraordinarily rare. Every other outcome will pay less, often far less, and the 96% figure accounts for all of those outcomes averaged together across all players and all rounds.
Fair by design
- Every round is provably fair: the outcome comes from a server seed, your client seed and a nonce, all shown with the round so you can check the result was fixed before the bet. You can rotate your seed at any time.
- A 0 bet is always allowed, so every original game can be played for free.
- Bet limits are set per coin rather than per game — the same minimum and maximum apply across the originals.
Play Next Step · All Bethropic games
Payouts settle within the per-coin maximum profit cap, so the headline multiplier is the ceiling of the game, not of a single bet.