Impostor Odds Calculator – Among Us

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the related quarantines have an unexpected consequence – staying at home has turned many of us into gamers 🎮. Several video games have seen massive surges in popularity over the last few months – from Animal Crossing, through Fall Guys, to, surprisingly, Pokemon Go, whose creators responded to the situation by introducing an abundance of remote events. All these games did a great job helping us get through our quarantines, but recently, a player on a whole new level has entered the game.

It feels like everyone is playing Among Us now. The data provided by the game's creators state that over October, there were around 3.8 million concurrent players, with as many as 60 million daily users! Need some perspective? Imagine the entire population of Italy 🍕 logging in to play daily. The success of the game is huge.

And honestly, we understand why! With its simple rules similar to those of widely known and loved party games like Mafia and Werewolf, combined with its accessibility, the game allows you to spend quality time with your friends safely, even in the times of quarantine.

Here at Omni, we also gave in to the worldwide "Among Us" craze. That's why we know exactly how frustrating it is when when you just can't seem to get to play as the Impostor. When you are a crewmate game after game, it might start to feel like the odds are stacked against you. That's why we decided to create this Among Us calculator! With its help, you can quickly assess the chances of getting the role you'd like, depending on several variables such as how many games you'd like to play, the number of players, and the game settings you choose. Now you can enjoy the game without having to wonder if you'll ever get to play the role you like best! And if that's not enough, we also have a bunch of tips and tricks that you can use to make sure you get the best possible experience out of the game!

The beauty of our calculator is that it's so simple. All you need to do to get your probability figured out is:

• Input the number of games you want to play.
• State the number of impostors you want in the games.
• Write how many people are playing.

Then, in the next section of the calculator:

• Pick which role you want to check the probability for. After all, some people prefer to play as crewmates!
• Is it the probability of playing as an impostor precisely three times? Or maybe you'd rather check how probable it is that you'll be a regular crewmate five or more times? Don't worry – we're prepared for all of the cases! Pick the option that suits your need in the second drop-down menu.
• Input the value of X from the previous field.

Aaaand, voilà! At the bottom of the calculator, you will see your probability result. We even made a bar chart 📊 for you to illustrate it!

If you're interested in the math behind this calculator, move on to the following section.

In each game of "Among Us," there is a fixed number of players, and some of them are randomly chosen to be impostors. For instance, if eight people are playing and the system decides on two bad guys, then 2 / 8 = 1/4 of astronauts become impostors. Therefore, before the game starts and gives away the roles, there is a chance of 1/4 = 25% that one particular player will be the villain.

When you finish the play and distrust blooms in the hearts of all the players, you begin a new game. The rules are the same: there is a 25% chance of becoming an impostor. However, intuitively, we can say that it's more probable that someone new will be the evil one. After all, there were two impostors and six crewmates the game before, so we had three times more respectable space engineers.

The property described above is what brainy mathematicians call binomial probability. As mentioned in our probability calculator, it is a random process that we repeat several times, and each time there are two possible outcomes with the same probabilities in every instance.

For example, let's take three games and consider two impostors among eight players. What is the probability that one particular player will be the impostor twice?

The chance of playing as an impostor in a game is 2 / 8 = 25%, and that of being a crewmate is 6 / 8 = 75%. Next, we need to think in which of the three games our player was the impostor: it was either first and second, first and third, or second and third; let's call them options (1), (2), and (3), respectively.

For (1), there was a 25% chance to be the impostor in the first play, a 25% chance to be one in the second, and a 75% chance of not being one in the last. We multiply these values to get

25%·25%·75% = 4.6875%.

Similarly, for (2) and (3), we get

25%·75%·25% = 4.6875%

and

75%·25%·25% = 4.6875%.

We see that the number stays the same. All in all, if we add the results of the three options, we get

4.6875% + 4.6875% + 4.6875% = 14.0625%,

which is the probability of a player being an impostor in two out of three games.

Lastly, just to give you a taste of some nice-looking mathematical formulas, let's describe the general case. If the probability of being an impostor is equal to p, then the chance of playing a good guy is 1 - p. Therefore, the probability that a player will be the impostor k times in n games is equal to

P(n,k) = C(n,k) × pᵏ × (1-p)ⁿ⁻ᵏ

where C(n,k) is the number of combinations of k elements in an n-element set.

We've covered how to use this calculator, and after the comprehensive explanation above, we're pretty sure the math behind it is crystal clear. But that's not all we have to offer! In this section, you will find some simple tips and tricks that will allow you to become the best crewmate-slash-detective and/or the best murderous-alien-in-disguise this spaceship has ever seen.

Want to become the best detective on the surface of Polus? Here's what to do.

• Be smart about doing your tasks. While finishing them up quickly is one way to win, it's tough to do that before the impostors manage to kill everyone off. Consider spending some time in security or admin areas first – you might end up gathering some crucial information that will allow you to single out impostors and win faster than you would through tasks.
• Don't go wasting your emergency meetings without good reason. This is why:

• Don't rely on the taskbar too much. Watching someone do a task and assessing their credibility by monitoring the taskbar is a common technique for crewmates, but it doesn't always work. For one, a good impostor will make sure only to move away from the task when the bar is rising due to somebody else's honest work. And, as annoying as this may be, this game can lag pretty badly depending on each player's individual connection. Trusting the taskbar too much could lead you to make some veeery bad decisions.

• Safety is in numbers. Who would have thought that we'd tell you to rely on numbers of all things, huh? But trust us; it doesn't stem from our (Omni)calculator obsession with numbers. Traveling in groups of N + 1, where N is the number of impostors (so typically it would be either groups three or two, but hey – we're not going to tell you how to play) will make the Impostor's job extremely difficult!

And here are the tips for those of you who want to wreak havoc like no impostor ever has before.

• Avoid 50/50 accusations. This is a common mistake. Try to avoid getting yourself in situations where it could only be you or one other person. In such a case, it's pretty much guaranteed that you will get voted off sooner or later. No one can argue with the power of "if it's not me, vote yellow", yeah?

• Don't overdo venting. You need to keep in mind that being in a vent the entire game might make you sus. The crew might realize that no one has seen you for ages, and you'll likely lack any good alibi! Also, be smart about getting in and out of the vent. If you just pop out of it without paying much attention to your surroundings, you might get caught! Another good vent-related idea is to memorize which ones are visible on cameras and avoid using them if possible. If you keep all these points in mind, vents can be an invaluable asset in completing your mission.

• Slam that sabotage button. Sabotages are awesome. You can use them in many different ways. Calling an O2 crisis can be a great distraction from the body you killed on the opposite side of the map. Turning off the lights will help you a lot if the crew is smart enough to stay in groups. And on the maps where you can close off doors (you can't do that in Mira HQ), you can use that to bring some chaos into the game and make the crewmates anxious! And the best part? You can still sabotage when you're voted off. In 2+ impostor games, the help of your co-killer from beyond the grave can be invaluable.

• Fake the tasks, and do it well. This will provide you with a viable alibi. If you can describe in detail what you were (supposedly) doing before your kill was reported, the other players will likely let you off the hook, at least for one meeting.

The lists above are by no means comprehensive – there are a ton of strategies both sides can implement and even more little tricks you can pull off to increase your chances of winning. However, we think that figuring them out on your own is a big part of the fun! Now all that's left to do is put the knowledge from this calculator to use and have the time of your life on The Skeld!

Are you interested in game-related calculators? You may also enjoy the Pokémon Go Candy and the Pokémon Go weight loss calculator.