CS2 Case Odds in 2026: The Official Numbers and What a Knife Really Costs

In Counter-Strike 2, the chance of getting a knife skin or a pair of gloves from a standard weapon case is approximately 0.256%. That’s 1 in 391 openings, not 1 in 385, as most sites quote.

The cost of each opening is the key plus the case, so even if you’re trying to find a knife in a cheap CS2 case, you’re likely to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars before you finally obtain it. Our CS2 case odds calculator shows the probability and spending for your chosen case and budget. This guide gives you a deeper understanding of the topic.

What Are the Odds in a CS2 Case?

The official CS2 case odds figures don’t come from Valve. They never published these figures themselves. Instead, they come from Perfect World’s September 2017 disclosure. Perfect World is Valve’s official partner in China, where loot box probability disclosure is required by law.

These are Perfect World’s published numbers:

According to Perfect World, the odds of getting Mil-Spec, Restricted, Classified, Covert, or Exceedingly Rare items are the same for each skin in these categories. This basically means that if a case contains two Covert skins, you’re just as likely to find either of them. Individual skin price or quality is not a factor. Only the rarity tier is.

When a skin can be StatTrak, the odds of obtaining its StatTrak version are 10%, making a StatTrak knife a very rare skin. To get one, you’d have to open, on average, 3,910 cases.

The disclosure made by Perfect World nearly a decade ago does not give wear probabilities. This is important because CS2 skins in Factory New condition tend to be vastly more expensive than their Battle-Scarred, Well-Worn, Field-Tested, or even Minimal Wear counterparts.

Our CS2 float value guide tells you all you need to know about a skin’s wear level and how it affects its price.

What Are the Odds of Getting a CS2 Knife?

If you’re trying to find a CS2 knife skin, the odds are 1 in 391. For a weapon case whose gold items are knives, the chance of getting at least one after n independent openings is 1 − (390/391)ⁿ. Here’s what that math formula means in practice:

So to be 99% certain that you will get a knife skin, you’d have to open almost 1,800 CS2 cases. Of course, you will likely end up finding around a dozen Covert items in the process, which could be used in a trade-up to get the knife a bit faster.

Based on these calculations, after nearly 400 case openings, around 37% of players would still have no knife from all of their attempts. Neither Perfect World nor Valve disclosed a pity timer, and a losing streak does not improve your next opening’s chance of success. Each opening is an independent event.

If you want something specific and not just a random knife or pair of gloves, the odds are even lower because a CS2 case typically contains dozens of knife and glove skins. Take for instance the Glove case, which contains 24 possible glove skins. Only about 1 opening in 9,400 would give you your desired outcome.

Regardless of how you define success, always check the case’s contents before calculating the odds.

How Much Does It Cost to Open a CS2 Case?

At the moment (November 9, 2026) the price of a CS2 key is $2.49 for the US market. Add to it the price of the case and you get your total price for one case opening. Some cases can give you more valuable skins, which makes them more expensive.

Ultimately, how much it costs to open a CS2 case depends on the price of the case. The key price is the same for all of them. For example, let’s assume the case you want to open costs $0.50. The total cost of opening it will be $2.99.

However, if your goal is to find a rare CS2 skin, you’ll need to open it multiple times. So let’s do the math for this scenario:

The amount you are expected to spend, on average, before the first knife appears is therefore 391 × $2.99, or $1,169, assuming fixed prices. Will the knife be worth that amount? Maybe. In some cases, it can be worth a lot more. In other cases, it will be worth just a few hundred dollars.

On the bright side, that knife won’t be the only valuable skin you are expected to get. There will be multiple Covert skins, as well as a wide variety of blue, purple, and pink skins.

If you already own CS2 cases, the calculation is a bit different. Opening a CS2 case from your inventory requires just a key purchase. You could purchase that key and turn the case into a skin, or you could simply sell the case unopened.

Most openings give you a blue skin, which isn’t very valuable. Many Mil-Spec skins, as the Kilowatt Case’s listed contents and prices illustrate, sell for less than $1. The CS2 keys you’ve purchased in-game since 28 October 2019 cannot be traded or sold on the Steam Market.

Is It Cheaper to Trade up for a CS2 Knife Skin?

Valve’s 22 October 2025 update offered players the option of trading 5 regular Covert skins in exchange for a knife or a glove skin. In the case of knives, if you use StatTrak items, you will get a StatTrak result. Gloves do not have StatTrak versions.

When you use the Trade Up feature for this purpose, the inputs do not have to all be part of the same collection. But if you want to increase your chances of obtaining a specific result, you should not mix collections too much or, ideally, at all. Doing this changes which results are possible while giving you more flexibility on the input side.

Trading Covert skins for Exceedingly Rare ones is often cheaper than the case-opening method. However, a guaranteed Exceedingly Rare item is not a guaranteed bargain. That gold item could be worth less than the value of those five red items combined.

After the Valve update mentioned above, knife and glove prices dropped significantly, while Covert item prices increased.

Here’s a table that briefly explains the various methods of obtaining a knife or glove skin and what they imply:

When using the trade-up method, compare the total input cost with the value of the output range or the set of items you can obtain. Do the math and find out the best-case, worst-case, and average-case scenarios. Our CS2 trade-up calculator does this for any five Coverts, with each outcome’s chance and price. Always take into account the possible skin models, float values, and StatTrak status when comparing against an outright purchase.

One advantage of making a direct purchase is that you have complete control over the output you are getting for your money. In a trade-up, that output will be picked at random from a set of potential outcomes. If you choose to buy the knife skin you desire, you might want to check out our CS2 trading list.

A knife obtained through a player trade comes with a seven-day Trade Protection period. During this time, the trade can be reversed. Our Steam trade URL guide explains the trading process in depth. Unboxed knives aren’t covered, only traded ones.

Since Valve’s May 2026 update, Souvenir items can also be used in trade-ups, but their Souvenir attributes are lost.

What Are Terminals in CS2?

Valve introduced Genesis Terminals in September 2025 and Dead Hand Terminals in March 2026. A Terminal shows the offered item, its wear level and its price before payment. The offer can be declined and you do not need a key.

A Dead Hand Terminal has a 0.256% gold probability for gloves. A Genesis Terminal has no gold-tier skins.

Can You Open Cases in Every Country?

Access to CS2 weapon cases differs by location:

• In March 2026, Germany and the Netherlands received mandatory X-Ray Scanner opening for keyed containers. The rule does not include keyless containers, such as Souvenir Packages.

• France has used the same scanner method since September 2019. The item is revealed before the key purchase, but you must claim it before scanning another.

• Belgium has blocked case opening since July 2018.

• Valve separately enabled Genesis Terminals in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France in a September 2025 update.

What About Case-Opening Sites?

Third-party websites that sell CS2 cases set their own prices and odds and are not covered by Perfect World’s report. Our CS2 gambling list contains player reviews that might be useful to you.

In our 2025 skin gambling report, 43.5% of surveyed skin gamblers said they started before turning 18, and 72.2% (that’s almost 3 in 4) reported losing money. One thing to keep in mind is that those are self-reported survey findings and not measurements of every player’s experience.

Gambling is for adults aged 18 or older, subject to local law.

Frequently Asked Questions

Has Valve changed the case odds?

There’s no sign of it. The odds are the same as they’ve been for many years. Each rarity class in a CS2 case has different odds. Mil-Spec skins are fairly easy to obtain, while Exceedingly Rare items are very difficult to obtain.

Are the odds the same for every case?

Yes. Each CS2 weapon case that’s opened with a key has the same odds for each grade. The number of items in a grade differs from case to case, though, so the chance of one specific skin differs too.

Can any case give you gloves?

No. A CS2 case must contain gloves as part of its Exceedingly Rare item pool to be able to give you a glove skin.