Higher or Lower Game
Call the next card higher or lower and choose how much to stake. Count what is left in the deck, size each bet to your edge, and chase a target.
Settings
How to play
You start with 1,000. Before each card you pick a side and decide how much to stake. The game is about the stake as much as the side.
- 1Read the cardA card is showing. The next card will be higher or lower. The Ace is 1, the lowest card, and the King is 13. On red or black there is no card showing: you call the colour of the next one.
- 2Count what is leftEvery card turned is gone for good, so the odds change with each draw. With the 5 showing and the 2, 3 and 4 already gone, 8 of the 9 cards left are higher.
- 3Size the betChoose a side and a stake from 0 to all of your capital. A win adds the stake, a loss takes it, and a tie gives it back. Staking nothing is the right call when there is no edge.
- 4Review every betAfter the deck, each bet is compared with the best stake for that moment: the Kelly stake in Grow mode, and the stake with the best chance of reaching the target in Target mode.
Finish with as much as you can. Scored on how close your stakes came to Kelly’s growth, so a bad card does not cost you a good score.
Reach a multiple of your capital before the deck ends. Scored on how much of your best chance of getting there your stakes kept, bet by bet.
Maximising expected value says stake everything whenever you have an edge, and one wrong card then ends the game. Kelly stakes the edge instead: the difference between the cards for you and against you, over all of them. On red or black, Kelly always finishes at 9.08 times your capital whatever the order of the cards. A target above that forces you to bet more than Kelly, and the question becomes how much risk to take.