Most standard case openings end with a blue. The usual rounded figures put Mil-Spec at 79.92%, Restricted at 15.98%, Classified at 3.20% and Covert at 0.64%. Gold accounts for the remaining 0.26%, roughly one in 385 attempts. In a knife case, adding the StatTrak condition takes that down to about 0.026%, or one in 3,850. A glove case also uses the gold slot, but gloves have no StatTrak version.
CS2 Cosmetic Item Odds at a Glance
| Rarity | Color | Official odds | Approx. frequency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mil-Spec | Blue | 79.92% | About 1 in 1.25 |
| Restricted | Purple | 15.98% | About 1 in 6 |
| Classified | Pink | 3.20% | About 1 in 31 |
| Covert | Red | 0.64% | About 1 in 156 |
| Exceedingly Rare Special Item | Gold | 0.26% | About 1 in 385 |
Why do some odds discussions say one in 391 rather than 385? They retain the extra digit in Perfect World’s disclosure: 79.923% for blue, 15.985% for purple, 3.197% for pink, 0.639% for red, and 0.256% for gold. Divide one by 0.00256 and you get about 391. Rounding gold to 0.26%, as in our table, instead gives about 385.
Reaching a tier does not specify the skin. Perfect World says items of equal rarity in the same pool have equal base chances. If there are two red skins in a case, they divide the red tier’s chance between them. Each does not get the full 0.64%. StatTrak, wear and seed add further conditions to the exact copy you receive.
0.26% for any rare special item in a standard weapon case. The Gold pool can contain knives or gloves depending on the container.
For an item that can be StatTrak, the official conditional rate is 1 in 10. That is separate from the rarity roll.
Standard weapon cases do not secretly boost Gold rarity odds. What changes between cases is the item pool and market value.
Why Valve Published Case Odds
CS:GO case probabilities became public in 2017 through Perfect World, Valve’s publishing partner in China. The disclosure followed Chinese rules requiring operators to publish probabilities for randomized paid rewards. The relationship between ordinary tiers is generally five to one: move up a tier toward Covert and its likelihood drops to a fifth. Gold has a different weight, two against Covert’s five. Within a pool, items at the same rarity start with equal selection chances.
For an eligible item, the StatTrak version has a one-in-ten chance. A streamer might open an unusually lucky run, or none at all, without changing that rate. A short run might have far more or far fewer successes than expected. It cannot establish a new StatTrak or rare-special rate just because it looks unusual.
Important: These are probabilities, not a promised balance of rewards for your account. Even a long run without a rare item does not earn a guaranteed success on the next attempt.
Knife and Glove Odds
Standard Knife Odds: 0.26%
In a knife case, getting to gold means receiving a knife. The rounded rate is 0.26%, about once per 385 openings on average. A particular model in Factory New with a particular finish or seed is a much narrower outcome than any knife from that slot.
Suppose you get no knife in your first 384 cases. The next one does not complete a set or repay those misses; its odds stay the same. Nor does a lucky knife result use up your chance of gold on the following attempt.
A specific knife’s drop probability also depends on its model, finish, wear and pattern, not just reaching the Gold tier.
Different CS2 knife cases contain different rare-special pools. Choosing a different pool does not increase the overall Gold probability.
Model-specific case pools are easier to compare separately. Some containers can produce Karambits, while a different set contains Butterfly Knives.
StatTrak Knife Odds: About 0.026%
The one-in-ten StatTrak rule applies after restricting the question to eligible items. It does not mean one knife every ten cases. For the combined knife-and-StatTrak outcome, multiply the rounded gold rate by 0.1: 0.26% becomes 0.026%, roughly one in 3,850 attempts.
Glove Cases and the Dead Hand Terminal
In a glove case, gold means gloves rather than a knife. That is still only the start of choosing an outcome from the rare pool: the 0.26% figure cannot be used as the chance of one particular glove finish.
Dead Hand is a Terminal, not a standard keyed case. Valve launched it with 17 weapon finishes and 22 new gloves, and made the Terminal available through Weekly Care Packages. Its format differs from a case, but Perfect World groups it with keyed weapon cases for these probabilities: 0.256% for a rare-special result, commonly shown as 0.26%. The rare pool contains those gloves.
Buying or trading for a knife lets you choose the actual item instead of paying for a random opening.
Skip the 1-in-385 odds.
Buy the knife or gloves you want directly on Tradeit, then filter by finish, wear, and pattern.
Souvenir Package Odds vs Weapon Cases
A Souvenir package has no gold knife or glove slot, and its items cannot be StatTrak. Its percentages also depend on the package’s rarity ladder. You need to know how many tiers the collection contains before using an odds table for it.
For a six-tier Major souvenir package or map collection containing Consumer Grade through Covert items, Perfect World’s published distribution is:
| Souvenir rarity | Published odds |
|---|---|
| Consumer Grade | 79.872% |
| Industrial Grade | 15.974% |
| Mil-Spec | 3.328% |
| Restricted | 0.666% |
| Classified | 0.133% |
| Covert | 0.027% |
Remove a tier and those percentages change. A five-tier package cannot use this six-tier table, and a smaller collection needs its own distribution again. Match the package to the table before comparing its chance of a top-tier skin.
Sticker Capsule Odds
A four-tier capsule starts at High Grade and goes through Remarkable and Exotic to Extraordinary. Read the table from High Grade at 80.128% down to Extraordinary at 0.641%, with Remarkable and Exotic between them at 16.026% and 3.205%. Those figures apply to a capsule containing all four grades.
| Sticker rarity | Published odds |
|---|---|
| High Grade | 80.128% |
| Remarkable | 16.026% |
| Exotic | 3.205% |
| Extraordinary | 0.641% |
Paper, glitter, holo and gold are familiar examples from Major capsules. An older capsule may instead have fewer grades, in which case these four-tier percentages are the wrong table. Check its contents first, especially before reusing a formula that groups everything into paper, holo, foil and gold.
Armory and Special Container Odds
An Armory collection redemption does not use the standard weapon-case ladder. For five-tier weapon collections such as Graphic Design and Overpass 2024, Perfect World gives these probabilities:
| Armory collection rarity | Published odds |
|---|---|
| Industrial Grade | 80.026% |
| Mil-Spec | 16.005% |
| Restricted | 3.201% |
| Classified | 0.640% |
| Covert | 0.128% |
That puts an Armory Covert at 0.128%, but it is not a Gold knife or glove roll. Armory sticker and charm pools with four rarity levels use 80.128%, 16.026%, 3.205%, and 0.641%. Genesis uses four weapon tiers instead: Mil-Spec takes 80.128%, Restricted 16.026%, Classified 3.205%, and Covert 0.641%. The Genesis table stops there; it has no gold reward.
Container type matters: Before comparing two percentages, look at what you would receive. A gold sticker and a knife can both look like the top reward in their menus, but they belong to different containers and probability tables.
How CS2 Case Odds Actually Work
The Reveal Is Not a Roulette Wheel
Clicking at a particular moment in the scrolling animation will not make it stop on your chosen skin. The server supplies the reward. The probability disclosure describes what you can receive, without documenting exactly when that internal selection happens.
Getting several blues in a row does not make your next reward overdue for an upgrade. No published rule offers a pity counter, an account-luck multiplier or a better hour for opening. Prime changes access to features such as XP, Premier and Weekly Care Packages; it does not give the contents of a case a better rarity roll.
Regional note: Your region can affect which containers or opening screens you can use. A different screen is not evidence of better odds. For a regional variation, use the probability disclosure that actually applies to it.
What “1 in 385” Really Means
The game is not counting down those 385 attempts. That number is just the result of 1 ÷ 0.0026. For a whole run of openings, first calculate the chance that every one misses gold. Whatever is left after subtracting that chance from one is the probability of getting at least one gold somewhere in the run.
| Independent openings | Chance of at least one Gold | Chance of zero Golds |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | About 2.57% | About 97.43% |
| 100 | About 22.92% | About 77.08% |
| 385 | About 63.30% | About 36.70% |
At attempt 385, it is still quite possible to have received nothing from the gold pool. The table puts that chance at roughly 36.7%; the other 63.3% covers runs with at least one gold. An extra opening does not compensate you for which group you fell into. Its chance remains 0.26%.
Compound Odds Get Small Fast
The chance of consecutive golds starts with the same two independent attempts: 0.26% multiplied by 0.26%. Written as a percentage, the result is 0.000676%, or around one pair in 147,929. For a StatTrak knife, replace the second 0.26% with the eligible-item StatTrak rate of 10%, giving about 0.026% overall. Requiring a particular finish, wear or seed would narrow the result again.
Odds Are Not Expected Value
Suppose the case price rises while every skin inside stays at the same price. You are paying more for exactly the same odds and rewards, so the expected return gets worse. Calculating it requires the case and key costs and values for the possible outcomes, including wear, StatTrak and valuable patterns. Use realistic sale prices, since a headline valuation is not necessarily what a buyer will pay.
Sharing a rarity ladder does not mean two cases return the same amount of money. Their actual skins can be worth very different amounts. The case that suits your preferred reward pool is not necessarily a profitable opening. Buying an exact item from our skin catalogue avoids the random result.
Common CS2 Case-Odds Misconceptions
- “I am due a Gold.” No. A long losing run does not raise the next case’s 0.26% Gold probability.
- “Opening at a certain time helps.” No published odds rule gives better results by hour, day, animation timing, or server.
- “Prime improves case odds.” Prime changes account features and reward eligibility, not the rarity table inside a case.
- “One case has better knife odds.” Standard knife cases use the same Gold rarity probability. Specific knife pools and values differ.
- “1 in 385 means guaranteed by case 385.” It describes how rare the event is, without promising when your account will get one.
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FAQ
Can you influence a case opening by timing the animation?
No, you cannot steer the reward by timing the scrolling strip. Nor does the strip tell you exactly when the server generated the item: that timing is not set out in the official probability disclosure.
What are the exact CS2 case odds published by Valve?
Perfect World’s disclosure lists 79.923% Mil-Spec, 15.985% Restricted, 3.197% Classified, 0.639% Covert and 0.256% rare-special Gold for standard weapon cases. You will usually see the shorter versions in guides: 79.92%, 15.98%, 3.20%, 0.64% and 0.26%. They are shorthand for the disclosed rates, not a second set of odds.
What are the odds of getting a knife or gloves from a CS2 case?
A standard weapon case has a 0.26% Gold probability, about 1 in 385. Whether that Gold result can be a knife or gloves depends on the case’s rare special-item pool.
Are case odds the same across every CS2 case?
For standard weapon cases, yes: the rarity ladder is shared. The skins available inside are not. Souvenirs, Armory collection redemptions and Genesis Terminals are different formats with their own probability tables.
How do souvenir package odds compare to weapon cases?
Count the tiers in the package first. With six tiers, Covert has a 0.027% chance. There is no extra gold slot for a knife or gloves, so this is not the same ladder as a standard weapon case.
Are sticker capsule odds different from case odds?
Yes, a four-grade capsule gives High Grade 80.128%, Remarkable 16.026%, Exotic 3.205% and Extraordinary 0.641%. If the capsule has fewer grades, use its own distribution instead of dropping a row from that list.
Does using a StatTrak key change your odds?
There is no key that improves your StatTrak chance. An eligible item has a 10% StatTrak condition; combining that with the rounded gold rate gives about 0.026% for a StatTrak knife.
Do Prime accounts get better case odds?
No. Prime changes features and reward eligibility, including XP, ranks, Premier and Weekly Care Packages. Paying for that access does not alter the chance of a red skin or a gold item inside a case.
Can you earn case drops from playing CS2?
Prime players can earn Weekly Care Packages through their gameplay progression, and containers may be among the rewards. Getting a case that way does not improve the chance of its contents when you pay to open it.
What are the odds of back-to-back Gold pulls?
Using 0.26% for each attempt, a run of two golds has a 0.000676% chance, approximately one pair in 147,929. That is the probability before either opening. If the first has already given you gold, the second still has the ordinary 0.26% chance.
