How to Play Hi-Lo
A hi-lo round has one moving part. A card lies face up, two buttons offer a multiplier each, and you press the one you believe in. The next card settles it: a correct call multiplies the stake and shows a fresh card to call from, a wrong call ends the round and takes the stake. Between calls you can bank what has built up, and in many games you can skip a card you do not like.
This page covers the controls, the order of a round, the three rules that vary between titles and the words a game uses for them. For the chance behind every call, and what the multipliers imply about a game's return, see the hi-lo odds page.
A Round, Control by Control
- Set the stake. The bet is chosen before the first card is called, with plus and minus steppers or preset chips. In some titles a Start or Bet button then deals the opening card; in others it is already showing.
- Read the two buttons. Higher and Lower each carry a multiplier, and the two are never equal except from a middle card. The larger figure sits on the less likely call.
- Make the call. The next card is revealed. If it falls on your side of the showing card, the running win becomes the stake times the multiplier and the new card becomes the one to call from.
- Bank or continue. A Cash Out or Collect button pays the running win and ends the round. Calling again puts the whole running win on the next card, with the multipliers now applied to that larger amount.
- A wrong call ends it. The running win is lost and the round closes; the stake for the next round is set afresh.
A Worked Round
Ace high, fresh deck every card. The last column is the break-even payout of each call, stake included; the figures a game prints sit below it by the game's margin. Three correct calls here would multiply the stake by the three printed multipliers together, which is why a short chain grows quickly and why a fourth wrong call takes all of it.
Where the Next Card Comes From
Nearly every online hi-lo game draws each card from a complete pack, as if the previous card were put back and the deck shuffled. The card you are calling from can therefore appear again, and the odds of a call are the same on the first round as on the twentieth. The game's rules usually say so in a line such as every card is drawn from a new deck.
The key number: From a fresh pack a 7 goes higher 53.85% of the time; remove that 7 from a real deck and the same call wins 54.90%.
A minority deal a genuine 52-card deck down, removing each card as it shows. Those games tend to display the cards already dealt, because they matter: with the showing card gone, a 7 goes higher 54.90% of the time rather than 53.85%, and the chance of an exact match drops from 7.69% to 5.88%. Deeper into such a deck the figures move further still, and a printed multiplier that was generous on the first card can be poor on the thirtieth.
Ace High or Ace Low
A game either ranks the ace above the king or below the 2, and the help screen states which. With the ace high, a king is not the top of the deck: a higher call from it still wins 7.69% of the time, and from the ace itself a lower call loses only to another ace. With the ace low, those roles swap and the king becomes the card that cannot be beaten upward.
The rule is easy to forget mid-round, because the buttons look the same either way. A quick check is the multiplier on the king: a game that prints a large figure on higher from a king ranks the ace above it.
When the Next Card Matches
The next card shows the same rank as the one on display on 7.69% of calls from a fresh deck, however the ace is ranked. What happens then is the rule that separates hi-lo titles most sharply. In the strictest games a match is a loss, the same as a wrong call. In gentler ones the stake or the running win is returned and the card is replaced. In a third group each call includes the match, so a 7 after a 7 wins on either button, and every multiplier on the screen is smaller to pay for it.
A fourth rule appears in a few titles: a match pays a fixed bonus of its own, offered as a third button. Its multiplier is large because the chance is small, and the odds page gives the fair value of that call for each deck rule.
Skip, Cash Out and Auto Play
Skip. Where it exists, the button replaces the showing card with a new one without a call being made. In most titles it is free and can be used repeatedly; a few limit it per round. It is the only control that changes the odds of the next call, since it lets you refuse a middle card.
Cash out. Available after any correct call, it pays the running win and closes the round. Some games grey it out until a minimum multiplier has been reached, and some add a Collect Half option that banks part of the win and plays on with the rest.
Auto play. A few titles let you fix a sequence of calls in advance and a point at which to stop. The sequence is settled card by card exactly as manual calls would be, and the stop is applied as a cash-out.
The rule: Of every button on the screen, only Skip alters what the next call is worth, and in most titles it costs nothing to press.
Hi-Lo Words
How to Play Hi-Lo FAQs
No. After any correct call the running win can be banked. Continuing is a new bet on the next card with everything on the table at risk.
The one on the less likely call. From a low card the Lower button carries the large figure, from a high card the Higher button does, and from a card in the middle the two are close to each other.
Yes, in every game that draws from a fresh deck, where it happens on 7.69% of calls. What it does to the round depends on the game's matching-card rule.
Yes. A few studios run hi-lo with a presenter turning real cards, usually with a multiplier wheel or a side bet added. Being broadcasts, those tables cannot be played on credits and so do not appear in the list here, but the calls and the arithmetic are the same.
Every title in the free list here runs on play credits. A few rounds show how a particular game handles the deck, the ace and a matching card before any decision about playing it for real.