Deriv trade typesUpdated 3 min readBy the FXNOD team
Matches/Differs on Deriv: last-digit odds explained
Matches/Differs is a bet on the last digit of the final tick's price. Matches wins if that digit is the one you picked, a one-in-ten chance that pays several times the stake. Differs wins if it is any other digit, a nine-in-ten chance that pays a small fraction of the stake. One Differs loss cancels about ten wins.
The odds
| Contract | Winning digits | Chance | Profit needed per 1 staked to break even |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matches | 1 of 10 | 10% | 9.00 |
| Differs | 9 of 10 | 90% | 0.111 |
These are the break-even figures for digits that are equally likely. The payout Deriv quotes is below them, and the gap is the cost of the contract. Compare the quote on the order form with this table to see that cost.
Why Differs feels safe and is not
Winning nine trades in ten feels like skill. Suppose each win pays 0.10 on a stake of 1. A hundred trades at the expected rate give ninety wins of 0.10, which is 9, and ten losses of 1, which is 10: a net loss of 1. The win rate needed to break even at that payout is 90.9%, just above what chance provides. Add a stake that grows after a loss and a single unlucky pair of digits does serious damage.
Why Matches feels hopeless and is the same bet
Matches loses nine times in ten. Losing runs of twenty or thirty are ordinary: the chance of thirty Matches losses in a row is about 4%. The occasional win is large. On average it is the mirror image of Differs, with the same kind of cost, and a very different experience.
Does choosing the digit help?
Deriv describes its synthetic indices as generated by a random number generator. If each last digit is equally likely and independent of the ones before, no digit is better than another, and a digit that has appeared often or rarely is not more or less likely next time. Digit statistics describe the past. They are a way to choose, not an edge.
In FXNOD
Matches/Differs is in Trade Pilot and Bot Forge. Auto Hub also offers ready-made digit-contract bots with fixed plans. Every bot requires a stop loss.
Questions people ask
- What is the win rate of Differs?
- About 90% by chance, because nine of the ten digits win. It needs to be higher than that to profit at the payouts on offer.
- Which digit is best for Matches or Differs?
- None. On a random index every last digit is equally likely on each tick.
- Is Differs with Martingale a good strategy?
- It produces long runs of small wins and then a loss that takes many of them back at a multiplied stake. It does not change the average result.
Try this contract on demo
Every trade type in these guides is in Trade Pilot, and a bot in Bot Forge can buy it. Read the quoted payout and try it with Deriv's virtual funds.
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