The Tequila Glass of Destiny: Fish Tank’s Wet and Wild Wagers

Sam Jones the founder of 155.io is pushing the boundaries of online gambling by turning everyday chaos into bets. The company’s latest creation, Fish Tank, drops real coins into a water-filled tank and lets players wager where they’ll land. The result: a hypnotic, mobile friendly spectacle blending real-world physics and classic betting dynamics. Is it something we will be seeing in US or UK casino destinations anytime soon?

What Is Fish Tank?

Fish Tank began as a quirky idea Jones saw online: a sneaker shop in France used a real fish tank by the till. Customers dropped coins hoping one would land in a tequila glass among hundreds at the bottom, and occasionally someone won a free pair of trainers. Jones said he was struck by the “genius” of that concept.

He then asked: how can we take that simple idea and turn it into a fully-fledged online casino game?

The result: a custom water tank built to fit a mobile screen. 

“We have a mechanism at the top, which drops a coin every 10 or 20 seconds,” Jones explained. The coin falls through water, bouncing off bricks and swirling through bubbles. At the bottom, it might land on the left side, the right side, on a treasure chest platform, on a bed of bricks, or win the “moon shot” by landing in a tiny tequila glass.

"Players can place a 'safe bet' on left or right, or go for high-risk, high-reward bets on the chest, bricks, or the glass. The game is designed to be both relaxing to watch, the fall takes about six seconds, and potentially lucrative."

Engineering Real World Randomness

Bringing this to life required more than just dropping coins in water. As Jones put it, “the height, the width, then the lighting” all matter if the coins are to be visible on a phone screen. He tested with a regular aquarium and a handful of coins, but quickly realised the setup wasn’t compelling enough for continuous play.

So Jones custom designed a dispensing mechanism to drop coins at precise intervals automatically, no human needed. The company calibrated drop angles, adjusted bracing and lighting, and refined the tank’s interior to maintain unpredictability while keeping each drop clearly visible.

That emphasis on physical randomness sets Fish Tank apart from traditional digital random number generators (RNGs). There’s no digital code here, just gravity, water flow, and chance. As Jones said,

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“Where it goes, only God knows really which way the coin’s going to go.”

_{Sam Jones is bringing chaos and randomeness to gambling. (Image: Sam Jones)}

From Screen to Casino Floor, Ambitions for Real Life

Jones believes Fish Tank could work beyond the phone. He’s already in talks with land based casinos about installing physical versions of his games. During a recent trip to Las Vegas, he found many casino floors stale and uniform, mostly slot machines and digital games with fixed formulas.

In contrast, Fish Tank (and other 155.io games like marble races, ping pong stair drops, and “duck flume” water races) offer something fresh: visceral, physical unpredictability with a visual spectacle. 

“Casinos now are really dull places,” he said. “I think once we’ve proven these games in a digital format … people will say we want that in our casino.”

_{Sam Jones brings chaos and randomness to gambling. (Image: Sam Jones)}

Why Fish Tank is Designed for Mobile First, Fast Paced Players

Jones sees Fish Tank as part of a larger shift, toward short bursts of suspense, immediate action, and simple-to-understand mechanics. He compared the appeal to his childhood fairground games, which would take 15 minutes of play for a stuffed toy jackpot. "That kind of slow, drawn-out fun doesn’t cut it anymore, he said."

Today’s players, largely on mobile, want something quick, visually engaging, and with punchy outcomes. A game that plays out in seconds, with the possibility of a “moon shot,” aligns perfectly with that mindset. For Jones, games like Fish Tank succeed when they deliver chaos, clarity and speed.

The Road Ahead, Innovation, IP, and the Sandbox Approach

Jones admits the industry tends to copy successful formats quickly, which makes original ideas hard to protect. His company has started procedures for intellectual property protection in the U.S., although he says social copy, especially in gambling, is often inevitable.

Preventing imitation, he believes, comes down to speed of execution, quality of design, and distribution scale. For 155.io, that means launching multiple creative games quickly, refining them, then pushing them into as many casinos and platforms as possible.

Fish Tank is just version one. Future iterations, and entirely new games, are already in ideation. For Jones, the goal is to build a brand around this chaotic, real world betting, one that stands apart from traditional slots, card games, or digital crash games.

A New Mobile First Chaotic Physical Randomness Machine

Fish Tank represents a new direction in online gambling, one where real-world physics, spectacle and risk merge into a mobile-first, highly visual format. By building a physical randomness machine tuned for the smartphone screen, 155.io hopes to tap into a cultural appetite for high-speed novelty and social entertainment.

Whether Fish Tank becomes a staple in online casinos, or even real-world casino floors, remains to be seen. But with its carefully engineered chaos and mobile-friendly design, the game could be a signpost toward a different future for gambling: one where randomness isn’t simulated, it’s dropped, bounced, and splashed in real time.