The game
Tap the card that is showing. With a real deck, each card you tap is taken out of the deck.
Odds the game offers (optional)
Next card
- Maths reviewed by Josh Miller
- Tested by Diana Westfield
This Hi-Lo calculator answers the only question in the game: is the next card more likely to be higher or lower? Tap the card that’s showing and it tells you the exact chance of each, counting only the cards still in the deck. Keep tapping as cards come out and it keeps track, so after a few big cards a 9 that was a coin flip turns into a decent lower call. Put in the odds your game offers and it also tells you whether the call is worth making.
Hi-Lo game strategy in one line
Call the side with more cards left. With aces high and a fresh deck, that’s higher on 2 to 7, lower on 9 to king, and an 8 sits right in the middle with 24 cards each way. Everything else in Hi-Lo strategy is about noticing when the deck has moved away from fresh.
| Card showing (fresh deck, aces high) | Higher | Lower | Same | Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 94.1% | 0% | 5.9% | Higher |
| 4 | 78.4% | 15.7% | 5.9% | Higher |
| 6 | 62.7% | 31.4% | 5.9% | Higher |
| 7 | 54.9% | 39.2% | 5.9% | Higher |
| 8 | 47.1% | 47.1% | 5.9% | Either (no edge) |
| 9 | 39.2% | 54.9% | 5.9% | Lower |
| Q | 15.7% | 78.4% | 5.9% | Lower |
| A | 0% | 94.1% | 5.9% | Lower |
One deck with the showing card removed. With aces low, shift everything one place: the ace becomes the lowest card and the 7 is the middle.
Reading the odds a game offers
Online and live Hi-Lo games pay by the chance of your call, minus a cut. Take a 7 showing. Higher wins 54.9% of the time when a tie loses, so the fair price is 1 ÷ 0.549 = 1.82 in decimal odds. If the game offers 1.75 on higher, you’re giving away about 4% of every stake; if it offers 1.90, you’d be the one with the edge. Put both numbers in the CasinoCalcs calculator’s odds box and it does the sum. In practice the offered odds track a fresh deck closely, so the only time you’ll see value is when the deck has been dealt down and the game hasn’t adjusted.
The tie rule matters more than it looks. When the same rank loses, an 8 showing is a 47.1% shot both ways and every call is a loser in the long run. When ties give the stake back, the fair price on that same 8 drops from 2.13 to 2.00, because a twentieth of the time you get your money back.
When counting helps
If the game deals through a single deck, write nothing down, just tap. Say the first five cards out were K, A, Q, K and J. Now a 9 showing has 19 lower cards against 15 higher, roughly 56% to 44% instead of the 39% to 55% you’d expect, and the right call has flipped. Games that reshuffle after every card, or use six or eight decks, wash this out almost completely; switch the deck setting to see how little a few cards move an eight-deck shoe.
For the card-counting idea taken much further, see the card counting calculator, or work out any draw from a deck with the card probability calculator.
A good call is still a bet. Keep each stake small enough to shrug off. BeGambleAware.org is there if you need it.