Mods, I understand this is illegal. This query is merely out of curiosity, is informational and I will never do this or recommend anybody try this.
This is illegal, plus you might not be able to redeem codes for a while if you do this.
I'm just curious about the probability. I'm sure someone has done that and won something before. Must've felt like a million bucks
Posted by Perpetual_Noob8294
14 Comments
Why would it be illegal
10
I dunno, but from my understanding, doesn’t the gift code gets activated the moment it gets scanned at the shop and paid for?
Aren’t codes from gift cards unavailable unless they’re activated?
Winning? I think you mean stealing. Technically.
But given the fact that there is 26 letters in alphaber and 10 numbers then every slot can have 36 options. Insert thst into 15 slots and you have 36^(15)
Unlikely
Chance is: 0.00000000000045%
50% either you get it or you dont
It’s actually 50/50 because you either get it or you don’t
The chance is extremely low, even if you have the correct code it wouldn’t be activated so wouldn’t work.
I think you will get better answers posting something like this on r/ theydidtheymath
Can’t know if we don’t know how many codes are valid. But if there was only one valid code, it would be 1 chance out of 221073919720733357899776. Divide that number by the number of valid codes.
This is not illegal, but Steam will keep you from doing it too much time in a row to prevent bot attempts.
Chances are very very low though. Even without doing the math, it’s like 1 on 1 billion chance to land on an actual key.
“I’m sure someone has done that and won something before.”
No, you are not sure. That’s not how wallet codes works. Gift cards need to be activated by the store.
You are thinking like every wallet code in existance is activated and you just have to guess the digit to redeem the code.
Steam wallet code is typically 15 characters long
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
each character can be an alphabet or a number
Alphabet: A-Z So, 26 characters
Numbers: 0-0 So, 10 different numbers
In total there can be any one of 36 characters in a given position in a code
I mean each of the 15 positions can be one of 36 characters
so, 36^15 = 2.2×10^23 possible codes.
That’s a huge number. Valve hasn’t even issued that much code till date
let’s say probably they have issued a total of 1B codes
Probability is
10^9/2.2×10^23 = 4.5×10^-5
and you can’t even brute force in steam as they’ll limit how many codes can you enter in a certain time frame.