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iBox / Permutation Play Guide — How the 4D "Box" Bet Works

An iBox ticket wins if any arrangement of your 4 digits appears in the draw. This guide covers the math, the cost trade-off, repeated-digit shortcuts, and when iBox is and isn't worth it.

4dcheck Editorial · 2026-05-18 · Guides · 7 min read

iBox — short for "Inverted Box", and called "Permutation" play at some operators — is the third stake mode available alongside Big and Small play on most 4D tickets. The core idea is simple: instead of betting on a specific 4-digit number, you bet on any arrangement of the four digits you've chosen. The ticket wins if ANY permutation of your digits appears in the eligible prize positions. The math is more interesting than it looks, because the cost of an iBox ticket scales with how many unique arrangements your number has.

The mechanic in one paragraph

Say you pick 1234. The 24 permutations of 1, 2, 3, 4 are 1234, 1243, 1324, 1342, 1423, 1432, 2134, 2143, 2314, 2341, 2413, 2431, 3124, 3142, 3214, 3241, 3412, 3421, 4123, 4132, 4213, 4231, 4312, and 4321. An iBox ticket on 1234 wins if any of those 24 four-digit numbers appears in the eligible prize positions of the next draw. Compared to a straight ticket, you've effectively bought 24 numbers for the price of (roughly) 24 — see the cost section below — but you've also covered 24 distinct outcomes.

Why "unique" arrangements matter

When your 4-digit number contains repeated digits, the count of unique arrangements collapses. The general permutation formula for a 4-digit number with digit frequencies n1, n2, n3 (etc.) is 24 / (n1! × n2! × ...). Here are some concrete examples:

  • 1234 (all four digits distinct) — 24 permutations.
  • 1123 (one repeated digit) — 24 / 2! = 12 permutations.
  • 1122 (two pairs of repeated digits) — 24 / (2! × 2!) = 6 permutations.
  • 1112 (one digit appearing three times) — 24 / 3! = 4 permutations.
  • 1111 (all four digits the same) — 24 / 4! = 1 permutation. The number IS its only permutation, so iBox provides no extra coverage.

You can see the unique arrangements for any 4-digit number by visiting that number's history page — for example /history/1234 lists all 24 arrangements as clickable chips, while /history/1111 shows just the one. The iBox section on each history page tells you the exact count for any number you pick.

Cost of an iBox bet

Different operators price iBox slightly differently, but the underlying logic is the same: an iBox ticket is conceptually equivalent to placing the same base stake on every unique arrangement of your digits. So:

  • An iBox bet on a 24-permutation number (e.g. 1234) is approximately 24 times the cost of one straight ticket.
  • An iBox bet on a 12-permutation number (e.g. 1123) is approximately 12 times the cost.
  • An iBox bet on a 4-permutation number (e.g. 1112) is approximately 4 times the cost.
  • An iBox bet on a 1-permutation number (e.g. 1111) is no different from a straight bet — and most operators won't offer iBox on quad-digit numbers for this reason.

Some operators offer a discount on the iBox bundle to account for the fact that you're committing to all arrangements at once. Check the operator's bet slip — the cost shown there is authoritative.

What you win on an iBox ticket

When one of your permutations appears in a prize position, you win the per-arrangement prize for that position — not the full straight-bet prize. In other words, the prize is divided across the number of unique arrangements you covered. So:

  • If your 24-permutation iBox ticket on 1234 hits the 1st prize (i.e. one of the 24 arrangements appears as 1st), you win approximately the 1st-prize payout divided by 24.
  • If your 12-permutation iBox ticket on 1123 hits the 1st prize, you win approximately the 1st-prize payout divided by 12.
  • If your 4-permutation iBox ticket on 1112 hits the 1st prize, you win approximately the 1st-prize payout divided by 4.

The headline lesson: iBox doesn't get you a bigger payout if you hit. It gets you a much wider chance of hitting at all, at a proportionally smaller payout per hit. Expected value works out roughly the same as a straight bet (slightly worse, because most operators take a small per-arrangement fee), but the variance is dramatically lower. iBox is the lower-volatility stake mode.

When iBox is genuinely worth using

iBox is a good fit in two situations. First, when your digits are arranged in a way that you don't have strong feelings about — for example if you're betting your birthday digits 1, 9, 8, 7 but don't have a reason to prefer 1987 over 7891. iBox lets you bet on "any of these digits in any order" rather than forcing you to commit to one arrangement.

Second, when your number has a small number of unique arrangements. iBox on 1122 (6 permutations) gives you 6x the coverage at roughly 6x the cost — that's a manageable cost increase for a six-fold widening of the hit chance. iBox on 1234 (24 permutations) is a much bigger cost commitment for a much wider coverage, and many players prefer to instead pick a few specific arrangements and bet them straight.

When iBox is NOT a good fit

iBox doesn't help if all four of your digits are the same — 1111, 2222, etc. There's only one arrangement, so iBox and straight are identical. Most operators won't offer iBox on quad-digit numbers.

iBox also isn't a useful hedge if you've genuinely picked a specific arrangement for reasons that matter to you. If you specifically want to bet 1987 because that's your birth year, betting iBox 1987 means you also commit to 7891, 8791, 7198, and 21 other arrangements you don't actually care about. The cost is real and the payout per hit is reduced — the iBox is buying you outcomes you don't want.

Worked example

Let's say you're betting on 2112 at Magnum 4D. The unique arrangements of 2-1-1-2 are: 1122, 1212, 1221, 2112, 2121, and 2211 — six permutations. (You can confirm this on /history/2112.) An iBox ticket at, say, RM 1 base would cost approximately RM 6 (one base-stake unit per unique arrangement).

On the next Magnum draw, suppose the 1st prize is drawn as 2121. That's one of your six permutations. The straight bet on 2112 would have lost (because 2112 itself wasn't drawn). The iBox ticket wins. The payout would be approximately 1/6 of the standard Big-play 1st prize, because your RM 6 stake was spread across 6 arrangements. Net result: you've turned a losing straight bet into a winning iBox bet at the cost of 6x the stake and 1/6 the per-hit payout.

Whether that trade is worth it depends on how confident you are that one specific arrangement (2112) will be drawn versus any of the six. Mathematically, your 6-permutation iBox has 6x the chance of hitting any given prize position. The expected payout is approximately the same as a straight bet (slightly less due to the operator's margin); the variance is much lower.

iBox in combination with Big or Small

iBox is composable with both Big and Small play modes. So you can buy "iBox + Big" (any arrangement of your digits in any of the 23 prize positions), "iBox + Small" (any arrangement in only the 1st/2nd/3rd), or both alongside a separate straight ticket. The mode you pick determines which prize positions are eligible; iBox determines whether you cover specific arrangements or all of them.

If you're new to 4D and want to test a number across all 23 positions with the widest possible coverage, iBox + Big is the broadest single ticket you can buy. Just be aware the per-hit payout is correspondingly smaller.

Operators that support iBox

All of the operators 4dcheck tracks support iBox / Permutation play in some form. Specifics differ:

Math summary

If you remember nothing else from this article, remember this: the number of unique arrangements of your 4 digits determines both the cost and the per-hit payout of an iBox ticket. The probability of hitting at least one arrangement is proportionally higher. The expected value is approximately the same as a straight bet, so iBox is best thought of as a volatility-reduction mode rather than a higher-EV alternative.

Further reading

Related reading