High & Low Ladder
The card machine of the medal floor: guess whether the next card is higher or lower, and climb the ladder.
Choose a bet, then START.
Keys: H high · L low · T take · Space or Enter starts · S skips · B changes the bet
Medals are for playing the games on this site only. They are not money: they cannot be bought, cashed out or exchanged for anything.
Your medals are the Medal Game Center’s, shared by every machine there. Daily bonus and refills at the front
Last games
No games yet.
This visit
- Games
- 0
- Medals played
- 0
- Medals won
- 0
- Net
- 0
- Tops reached
- 0
- Highest rung
- 0
- Came back
- —
- Best play returns
- 89.96%
Every figure here is worked out exactly. Each card comes from a full, freshly shuffled deck, so what is to come depends only on the card showing and the rung reached: 13 cards on 12 rungs. The best play for every one of those states is found by working down from the top, in whole numbers, with nothing left to chance or rounding.
No way of playing brings back more than the best play: at every state it weighs every choice there is, so any other way of playing comes to the same or less.
The rules this machine plays by
- The deck: every card is drawn from a full, freshly shuffled deck of 52. Each rank is 1 chance in 13, every time.
- Ranks only, aces high: 2 is the lowest card and A the highest.
- A tie loses: a card of the same rank is a wrong guess.
- The bet pays for the first guess: TAKE comes after the first right guess.
- Twelve right guesses in a row reach the top, which is paid at once.
The next card, from each card
| Card | HIGH wins | LOW wins | Tie (loses) | Better side |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 12/1392.3% | 0/130.0% | 1/137.7% | ▲ HIGH |
| 3 | 11/1384.6% | 1/137.7% | 1/137.7% | ▲ HIGH |
| 4 | 10/1376.9% | 2/1315.4% | 1/137.7% | ▲ HIGH |
| 5 | 9/1369.2% | 3/1323.1% | 1/137.7% | ▲ HIGH |
| 6 | 8/1361.5% | 4/1330.8% | 1/137.7% | ▲ HIGH |
| 7 | 7/1353.8% | 5/1338.5% | 1/137.7% | ▲ HIGH |
| 8 | 6/1346.2% | 6/1346.2% | 1/137.7% | HIGH = LOW |
| 9 | 5/1338.5% | 7/1353.8% | 1/137.7% | ▼ LOW |
| 10 | 4/1330.8% | 8/1361.5% | 1/137.7% | ▼ LOW |
| J | 3/1323.1% | 9/1369.2% | 1/137.7% | ▼ LOW |
| Q | 2/1315.4% | 10/1376.9% | 1/137.7% | ▼ LOW |
| K | 1/137.7% | 11/1384.6% | 1/137.7% | ▼ LOW |
| A | 0/130.0% | 12/1392.3% | 1/137.7% | ▼ LOW |
From an 8 both sides win 6 ranks in 13 and lose 7: the worst card to guess from. From a 2 or an A the right side wins 12 in 13.
The ladder
| Rung | Pays on 5 | Times the bet |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 | ×1.2 |
| 2 | 8 | ×1.6 |
| 3 | 10 | ×2.0 |
| 4 | 12 | ×2.4 |
| 5 | 15 | ×3.0 |
| 6 | 20 | ×4.0 |
| 7 | 28 | ×5.6 |
| 8 | 40 | ×8.0 |
| 9 | 55 | ×11.0 |
| 10 | 80 | ×16.0 |
| 11 | 120 | ×24.0 |
| 12 (TOP) | 200 | ×40.0 |
Bets of 10, 20 and 50 pay 2, 4 and 10 times as much. What a rung pays includes the bet.
Best play, card by card and rung by rung
| Rung | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | J | Q | K | A |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First guess | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ |
| Rung 1 | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ |
| Rung 2 | ▲ | ▲ | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | ▼ | ▼ |
| Rung 3 | ▲ | ▲ | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | ▼ | ▼ |
| Rung 4 | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ |
| Rung 5 | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | T | T | T | T | T | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ |
| Rung 6 | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | T | T | T | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ |
| Rung 7 | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | T | T | T | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ |
| Rung 8 | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | T | T | T | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ |
| Rung 9 | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | T | T | T | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ |
| Rung 10 | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | T | T | T | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ |
| Rung 11 | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | T | T | T | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ |
▲ guess HIGH, ▼ guess LOW, T take. On the first guess there is nothing to take yet. High on the ladder the rungs grow faster, and it pays to go on from more cards.
Ways of playing, side by side
| Way of playing | Brings back |
|---|---|
| Best play (the chart above) | 89.965% |
| Rule of thumb: take on 5 to J | 89.778% |
| Always take on rung 1 | 85.207% |
| Always take on rung 2 | 77.415% |
| Always take on rung 3 | 65.985% |
| Always take on rung 4 | 54.011% |
| Always take on rung 5 | 46.050% |
| Always take on rung 6 | 41.881% |
| Always take on rung 7 | 39.993% |
| Always take on rung 8 | 38.970% |
| Always take on rung 9 | 36.549% |
| Always take on rung 10 | 36.261% |
| Always take on rung 11 | 37.100% |
| Always climb to the top | 42.176% |
Every way but the best guesses the likelier side. Taking at once on the first rung is already close; climbing every game to the top reaches it about once in a hundred games and brings back far less.
How games end, played the best way
| Ending | Chance |
|---|---|
| A wrong guess | 34.06% |
| TAKE on rung 1 | 44.38% |
| TAKE on rung 2 | 17.66% |
| TAKE on rung 3 | 3.246% |
| TAKE on rung 4 | 0.4732% |
| TAKE on rung 5 | 0.1147% |
| TAKE on rung 6 | 0.03056% |
| TAKE on rung 7 | 0.01695% |
| TAKE on rung 8 | 0.00868% |
| TAKE on rung 9 | 0.004493% |
| TAKE on rung 10 | 0.002324% |
| TAKE on rung 11 | 0.001202% |
| The top | 0.002016% |
Next to the real thing
High and low is an old card game. Japanese medal poker machines offer it as one of their double-ups, where a tie counts as a miss; on TV it was played down a row of cards, where a pair loses too; and online versions draw each card from a fresh deck and price each guess by its chance.
This machine keeps the tie rule of the first two and the fresh deck of the last, and puts the guesses on a fixed ladder, as a medal machine shows its lamps: the same twelve rungs for every card, so the skill is in when to stop. The ladder is the floor’s own, set so that the best play brings back about 90%, as medal machines are commonly set.
Check it
FLOOR JACKPOT
+ 1% of every medal played goes to the floor jackpot: the site adds 1 medal for every 100 you play, on top of what you play. Nothing is taken out of it, so this machine’s own return is exactly as shown.
Each medal played is also a 1 in 150,000 chance to win the whole pool, which starts again at 1,000 medals once it is won. In the long run it brings back 1.67 medals for every 100 played, but only in the long run: most players never win it.
It is for players who are signed in and have joined the floor, on the first 20,000 medals each plays in a day (Japan time) at the linked machines, with one floor jackpot a day at most.
Like the rankings, the floor jackpot is for fun. The medals played that feed it are what players’ browsers report: the site checks each report against what that machine allows, but it cannot prove it. The draw itself is made on the site’s server, never in a browser.
Linked machines: Medal Pusher, Slot Machine, Calico Janken, Roulette & Martingale, Three Card Poker, Big Catch Harbor, Mini Turf Racing, Ball Bingo, Star Festival Big Wheel, High & Low Ladder, Moonlit Sic Bo.