Tarot High Card
Twenty-two arcana of our own invention, numbered nought to twenty-one. They are not real tarot, they foretell nothing, and the Stern Hatstand would like that on the record. You only have to guess higher or lower.
The arcana table
Choose a stake to see the exact return of each guess.
Your coins: –
Pick a stake, then guess higher or lower.
How to play
- One arcanum lies face up. Choose a stake of 20, 50 or 100 coins.
- Each button shows what a correct guess pays, in coins, before you press it.
- The next card comes from a full, freshly shuffled deck of 22, so the same number can turn up twice. If it does, that’s a tie and half your stake comes back, which is still a loss of the other half.
- The revealed card becomes the new face-up card. If you don’t fancy the one you’re given, cut the deck for another at no cost.
- Guesses that would pay less than 1.10× are not offered: a card numbered 0 or 21 has nothing worth betting on, and one numbered 1 or 20 only offers one direction.
How it pays
For a guess that k of the 22 cards would satisfy, the multiplier is 0.95 × 22 ÷ k, rounded down to the hundredth. The payout is your stake times that, rounded down to a whole coin. Ties hand back half the stake. The last column is the exact average return of a 100-coin bet, ties included.
| Face up | Higher pays | Lower pays | Return (higher / lower) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 · The Mislaid Umbrella | not offered | not offered | – / – |
| 1 · The Juggler of Teaspoons | not offered | 20.90× | – / 97.27% |
| 2 · The Gossiping Kettle | 1.10× | 10.45× | 97.27% / 97.27% |
| 3 · The Duchess of Crumpets | 1.16× | 6.96× | 97.18% / 97.18% |
| 4 · The Stern Hatstand | 1.22× | 5.22× | 96.55% / 97.18% |
| 5 · The Curate's Bicycle | 1.30× | 4.18× | 96.82% / 97.27% |
| 6 · The Quarrelsome Swans | 1.39× | 3.48× | 97.05% / 97.18% |
| 7 · The Runaway Perambulator | 1.49× | 2.98× | 97.09% / 97.09% |
| 8 · The Very Patient Snail | 1.60× | 2.61× | 96.82% / 97.18% |
| 9 · The Lamplighter's Ladder | 1.74× | 2.32× | 97.18% / 97.18% |
| 10 · The Wheel of Cheese | 1.90× | 2.09× | 97.27% / 97.27% |
| 11 · The Scales of Marmalade | 2.09× | 1.90× | 97.27% / 97.27% |
| 12 · The Upside-Down Goose | 2.32× | 1.74× | 97.18% / 97.18% |
| 13 · The Sleepy Lodger | 2.61× | 1.60× | 97.18% / 96.82% |
| 14 · The Two Teacups | 2.98× | 1.49× | 97.09% / 97.09% |
| 15 · The Grumbling Gargoyle | 3.48× | 1.39× | 97.18% / 97.05% |
| 16 · The Wobbly Lighthouse | 4.18× | 1.30× | 97.27% / 96.82% |
| 17 · The Polite Comet | 5.22× | 1.22× | 97.18% / 96.55% |
| 18 · The Moon in Slippers | 6.96× | 1.16× | 97.18% / 97.18% |
| 19 · The Sun in a Bonnet | 10.45× | 1.10× | 97.27% / 97.27% |
| 20 · The Brass Band Rehearsal | 20.90× | not offered | 97.27% / – |
| 21 · The Whole Parlour Applauding | not offered | not offered | – / – |
Across all three stakes, every guess on offer returns between 94.32% and 97.27% of its stake on average, so over time the deck always keeps a little. That is the whole of its magic.