Every Magic 8 Ball answer, what each one is actually telling you, and how to handle the replies that seem to say nothing at all. There are twenty, they have barely changed since 1950, and they fall into three groups.
The complete list of Magic 8 Ball answers
| Answer | Tone | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| It is certain | Affirmative | The strongest yes in the set. |
| It is decidedly so | Affirmative | Yes, with no reservation. |
| Without a doubt | Affirmative | Yes; the ball is not hedging. |
| Yes definitely | Affirmative | A plain, emphatic yes. |
| You may rely on it | Affirmative | Yes, and you can act on it. |
| As I see it, yes | Affirmative | Yes, but framed as an opinion. |
| Most likely | Affirmative | Probably - the softest of the ten yeses. |
| Outlook good | Affirmative | Conditions favour you rather than a flat yes. |
| Yes | Affirmative | Nothing to interpret. |
| Signs point to yes | Affirmative | Yes, on the evidence so far. |
| Reply hazy, try again | Non-committal | Shake again; nothing has been said. |
| Ask again later | Non-committal | Too early to call. |
| Better not tell you now | Non-committal | Deliberately withheld - the most theatrical of the twenty. |
| Can't predict now | Non-committal | The answer is not available yet. |
| Concentrate and ask again | Non-committal | The question was too vague; sharpen it. |
| Don't count on it | Negative | No, and do not plan around it. |
| My reply is no | Negative | A flat refusal. |
| My sources say no | Negative | No, attributed to somebody else - the ball's one joke. |
| Outlook not so good | Negative | Probably not, rather than certainly not. |
| Very doubtful | Negative | The strongest no in the set. |
The three groups
Ten affirmative, five non-committal, five negative - why the split is 10/5/5. In practice that means a 50% chance of a yes, a 25% chance of a genuine no, and a 25% chance the ball simply passes. Knowing the ratio changes how the toy reads: an encouraging answer is the base case, not a result.
How to read the non-committal five
The five middle answers are the most interesting, because they were written to keep the game going rather than to inform. "Concentrate and ask again" is the only one that carries real advice - it usually turns up when the question was not a yes-or-no question in the first place. If the ball keeps giving you the middle five, check that what you are asking has a yes or a no available at all.
Wording that drifts between editions
Print runs vary in punctuation and abbreviation: you will see "Yes - definitely" and "Yes definitely", "Cannot predict now" and "Can't predict now", "Don't count on it" with and without the apostrophe. These are typographic differences, not different answers. Licensed novelty balls do sometimes replace the text wholesale while keeping the 10/5/5 structure.
Asking a question the ball can answer
- Make it yes or no. "Should I take the job?" works; "What should I do about the job?" cannot be answered by any of the twenty.
- Ask one thing at a time. Compound questions get a single face and you will not know which half it answered.
- Take a non-committal answer as an instruction to re-ask, which is exactly what it was written for.
- Do not re-roll a no until it turns into a yes. If you were going to, you already knew the answer - which is the useful thing the toy actually does.
Ask the ball
The Magic 8 Ball on this site draws from exactly these twenty answers and tags each one affirmative, non-committal or negative so you can see which group you landed in. How the physical ball picks a face.
