Thai Hi-Lo is played with three dice shaken under a cover. The board looks busy, but every bet on it is a statement about the same three dice — once that clicks, the layout stops being intimidating.

These are the bets and payouts as our tables run them. Payouts below are profit, so “pays 1 to 1” means you get your stake back plus the same again.

The two main bets

Hi and Lo are the bets the game is named for, and they are decided on the total of the three dice.

  • Hi — the total is 11 to 17. Pays 1.10 to 1.
  • Lo — the total is 4 to 10. Pays 0.95 to 1.

Triples — all three dice showing the same face — are excluded from both, which is where the house margin on these bets comes from. It is the same structural idea as the zero on a roulette wheel.

There is also a combined eleven Hi-Lo bet on the total landing exactly on 11, paying 6 to 1.

Betting a single number

You can back a specific face, and the payout scales with how many of the three dice show it:

  • Appears on one die — pays 1 to 1
  • Appears on two dice — pays 2 to 1
  • Appears on all three — pays 5 to 1

This is the most intuitive bet on the board and a reasonable place to start, because you can watch it resolve without doing any arithmetic.

Combination bets

Two-number combination — two specific different faces both appear. Pays 5 to 1.

Three-number group — you nominate three faces:

  • Any two of them appear — pays 1 to 1
  • All three appear — pays 5 to 1

Number plus direction

These are the bets people miss, and they carry the biggest prices on the board. You are betting that a particular face appears and that the total falls on a particular side.

Number with Lo:

  • 1 — pays 1.80 to 1
  • 2 — pays 2 to 1
  • 3 — pays 3 to 1
  • 4 — pays 4 to 1
  • 5 — pays 6 to 1
  • 6 — pays 10 to 1

Number with Hi:

  • 3 — pays 6 to 1
  • 4 — pays 4 to 1
  • 5 — pays 3 to 1
  • 6 — pays 2 to 1

The prices tell you the story. A six alongside a Lo total pays 10 to 1 because a six drags the total upward — you are asking for a number and a direction that fight each other. A six with Hi pays only 2 to 1 because those two things agree.

That is the most useful thing to understand about this board: the payout is a direct readout of how much the two halves of a bet are working against each other.

How a round runs

Betting is open for about twenty seconds, then the board locks, the dice are shaken for a few seconds, and the result is shown before the next round opens. The minimum stake at our tables is 20 chips.

Which bets are worth it

Hi and Lo are the closest to even money and the least punishing. Single-number bets are simple and mid-priced. The number-plus-direction bets are the ones offering large returns, and they price that risk accurately — they pay well because they land rarely.

No arrangement of these bets produces an advantage. Covering more of the board buys more frequent small wins and costs more per round; it does not change the underlying maths. That is worth knowing before you start building a system out of it.

How the house edge works · Play Thai Hi-Lo free on FUNFOR.YOU