How to play Hazard

Hazard is played with two dice and chips or points to bet with. Two to eight players is a good number. The game is the historical ancestor of craps and was traditionally played for money in English gaming houses. At home it works well with chips: give everyone the same amount to start with.

One player is the caster. The role rotates, so everyone gets the same number of turns with the dice.

Before rolling, the caster names a main. It must be 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9. The caster then puts a bet in the pot, and the other players cover it between them with an equal amount. In effect they are betting that the caster loses the round.

The caster now throws both dice, and the total can settle the round at once:

• The main: the caster wins immediately. Such a throw is called a nick.
• 2 or 3: the caster loses immediately. This is called throwing out.
• 11 or 12: wins or loses depending on the main, see the next section.
• Any other total: becomes the caster's chance, and the round carries on.

The rules for 11 and 12 are what make Hazard a little fiddly, and they depend on the main:

• If the main is 5 or 9, the caster loses on both 11 and 12.
• If the main is 6 or 8, the caster wins on 12 and loses on 11.
• If the main is 7, the caster wins on 11 and loses on 12.

Once a chance has been set, the caster keeps rolling until one of two numbers appears: if the chance comes first, the caster wins. If the main comes first, the caster loses. Note how the main switches sides during the round: it wins on the opening throw, but loses later on.

The round is settled as soon as it is decided. If the caster wins, the whole pot goes to the caster. If the caster loses, the other players split the pot in the same proportions as they covered it.

Hazard has no natural end point, so agree beforehand how many rounds to play, ideally so that everyone casts the same number of times. Whoever holds the most chips at the end wins.

The simplest house rule is to fix the main at 7 for every round. That way nobody has to remember the exceptions for 11 and 12, and the game becomes an early version of Craps in all but name. The word craps itself probably comes from crabs, the old nickname for the losing throws of 2 and 3 in Hazard.

Grand Hazard, despite the name, is a different game. It is played with three dice and has far more in common with Chuck-a-Luck.

Hazard is among the oldest dice games we know by name. It appears in English texts from the Middle Ages, including Chaucer in the 1300s, and in the 1600s and 1700s it was the great gambling game of the English gaming houses. In the 1800s the rules were simplified in America, and the result was craps.

Yes. The rules above are written for chips, and the game works just as well as a plain race for points. Give everyone ten chips, say, play an agreed number of rounds, and crown whoever has the most left as the winner. The tension of the throws stays the same.