Magic 8 Ball
Optional. The answer does not depend on it.
:
- 9
- Positive answers
- 5
- Non-committal
- 5
- Negative answers
The Magic 8 Ball answers with one of the standard responses from the original toy, kept in their real proportions: nine affirmative, five non-committal and five negative. That imbalance is genuine. The physical toy is deliberately optimistic, and a version with equal odds would not behave like the thing people remember.
How it works
The physical toy has a twenty-sided die floating in dye. Ten faces carry affirmative answers, five are non-committal and five are negative, so a question is roughly twice as likely to get a yes as a no.
- Affirmative: "It is certain", "Without a doubt", "Yes definitely", "Most likely", "Signs point to yes" and others.
- Non-committal: "Reply hazy, try again", "Ask again later", "Better not tell you now", "Cannot predict now", "Concentrate and ask again".
- Negative: "Do not count on it", "My reply is no", "My sources say no", "Outlook not so good", "Very doubtful".
The answer is drawn with the browser cryptographic random source. Your question is not read, matched or stored. It is there because typing it out is part of the ritual, not because it changes anything.
Examples
A shake
Question
Should I ship on Friday?
Result
Outlook good (positive)
The tone is labelled so you know which of the three groups the answer came from, which the physical toy leaves you to work out.
The odds
Over many shakes
:
Result
About 47% positive, 26% non-committal, 26% negative
Nine, five and five out of nineteen. The original toy has ten affirmatives on a twenty-sided die; the wording of one is duplicated in most reproductions.
Frequently asked questions
Are the odds of a yes and a no equal?
No, and they are not in the physical toy either. Ten of the twenty faces are affirmative, five are non-committal and five are negative, so a positive answer is about twice as likely as a negative one. The toy was designed to be encouraging.
Does my question affect the answer?
Not at all. The question field is there because asking out loud is part of how the toy works, but nothing reads or analyses it. The answer would be identical with the field left empty.
What does "Reply hazy, try again" actually mean?
It is one of the five non-committal faces, which exist so the toy can decline to answer. In the physical version they are the reason shaking again feels legitimate rather than like cheating.
Should I use this to make real decisions?
Only in the sense that any coin flip helps, noticing your reaction to the answer often tells you what you already wanted. The answer itself carries no information whatsoever.