Higher or Lower — known on the night as Play Your Cards Right — is the most-requested game at Premier SpeedQuizzing events. Simple rules, enormous tension, and an ending that always produces a genuine, audible reaction from the whole room. Because the rules take seconds to explain, everyone in the room can follow along and shout advice from the very first card.
How to play
We lay ten cards face-down on a board, visible to the whole room. We then turn one card face-up at one end to start the game. After that, we randomly pick a player, who must predict whether the next card in the row is higher or lower than the one just revealed.
- Get it right and move to the next card
- Get it wrong and the game resets
- Make it through all ten cards in a row and win the jackpot
A correct sequence of ten cards is rarer than it sounds. The odds shift with every card — for example, whether the next card is likely to be higher or lower depends entirely on which cards are still left in the deck, not on gut feeling. Significance magazine, published by the Royal Statistical Society, has actually worked through the real probability behind exactly this kind of higher-or-lower run. The cards are fair — a standard deck — but the tension by card seven, eight, nine is extraordinary, and as a result the room always reacts to the final card.
The jackpot
The jackpot builds each week nobody wins it. The longer the run without a winner, the more dramatic it eventually becomes — and, because tension builds card by card, the room gets noticeably louder with each successful guess.
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Play Your Cards Right is a regular feature at our corporate and private events too. Book a quiz night for your workplace or event →
