Although both can be used, I think "one third" is less clear than "one-third", which links the two words together and makes it instantly clear that this is a fraction.
Instead of one-third, try replacing it with another fraction, say 8/19 and see how it looks.
Here's an example where the hyphen is dropped (determiner) :-
"Billy cut the pizza into three equal pieces. He gave one third to Amy, another third to Charlie, and the last third to Dave."