Hazard

How to Play Hazard

In a nutshell: The medieval ancestor of craps - Call a main, then survive the chance. You play with 2 dice, it's rated historical, pick your main, and your chances shift with the main you call (5 to 9).

Hazard is where craps began - an English dice game so old that Chaucer's pilgrims argued over it in the 1380s. Unlike craps, YOU choose the crucial number: before rolling, the caster calls a main of 5, 6, 8 or 9. Roll the main and you 'nick' it - an instant even-money win. Roll a 2 or 3 - 'crabs' - and you are thrown out. The 11 always loses against these mains, while the 12 nicks a main of 6 or 8 and loses otherwise. Any other total becomes your chance: from then on the duel is chance against main - roll your chance again before the main shows and you win; the main first and you lose. Every main carries slightly different odds, which is exactly the crooked charm that kept hazard alive for five centuries. Same session stakes as the rest of the site: $500 in free chips, race to $1,000.

Hazard at a glance

Goal	Double $500 to $1,000 playing the 14th-century game craps came from - call your number, then out-roll it.
Dice used	2 standard dice - 36 combinations per roll
Difficulty	Historical, pick your main
Odds	Your chances shift with the main you call (5 to 9)
Family	Street & Historical
Bankroll	Start with $500 in free chips - double up to $1,000 to win the session

Step by step

History of Hazard

Hazard is one of the oldest recorded dice games in Europe - legend traces it to English crusaders besieging the castle of Hazarth in the 12th century, and by the 1380s Chaucer's Canterbury Tales could assume every reader knew it. For centuries it was THE gambling game of English taverns and aristocratic clubs alike, with fortunes lost at White's and Almack's over calls of the main.

Its vocabulary built the modern game: nicks, crabs, the caster, the chance. When Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville carried hazard to New Orleans around 1805, players simplified it by fixing the main at 7 - the one call whose odds balanced - and 'crabs' slurred into 'craps'.

Hazard itself faded through the 19th century as its offspring conquered America, but every seven-out and every yo-leven is hazard talking. Craps.now deals the classic mains with free chips so you can play the family tree from the root.

How to Win Hazard: Strategy

💡 Top tip: Call 6 or 8 as your main: the 12 nicks for you, which turns the worst come-out roll in craps into a winner here.

Winning tips, in order of importance

1. Learn the nick table cold - which of 11 and 12 helps or hurts is the entire difference between mains.
2. Once a chance is set, remember the race is rarely even: a chance of 6 or 8 against a main of 5 or 9 is a race you lead.
3. The 2 and 3 are always fatal on the first roll - three ways out of thirty-six, the fixed tax every main pays.
4. Mains of 5 and 9 give up both the 11 and 12 - call them for variety, not value.
5. Flat bets fit a game with no odds or side bets - your main call is the only strategy lever, so pull it thoughtfully.
6. Play a few rounds calling each main and feel why 18th-century gamblers wrote pamphlets about this choice.

Advanced tactics for Hazard

1. The caster's disadvantage varies by main - roughly 1.5% on 6 and 8 and steeper elsewhere - which is why sharps always called 6 or 8 and left 5 and 9 to romantics.
2. Chance-versus-main is pure ratio math: a chance of 8 (five ways) against a main of 5 (four ways) wins 5/9 of decided rolls - count ways and you know every race.
3. The best possible position is chance 6 or 8 against main 5 or 9: you lead five ways to four. The worst is the mirror image.
4. A first-roll 4 or 10 chance is a slow grind (three ways each) - expect long rounds and budget the leaderboard clock accordingly.
5. Hazard has no field, props or odds to distract you - treat each round as a two-number study and you will out-play its era's average gambler.
6. Note what craps fixed: locking the main at 7 (the most frequent total) balanced the game enough for banking - your main call is a tour of why.
7. When your rack nears $1,000, switch to the friendliest call (main 6 or 8) and smallest stake that keeps the clock moving - closing discipline wins boards.

Common Hazard mistakes to avoid

• Calling mains at random. Fix: call 6 or 8 - the 12 nicks for you and the follow-up races run friendliest; 5 and 9 give up both the 11 and the 12.
• Forgetting the 11 loses against every main offered here. Fix: burn the nick table into memory before betting - which of 11 and 12 helps is the entire difference between mains.
• Treating every chance race as even money. Fix: count ways - a chance of 6 or 8 against a main of 5 or 9 leads five ways to four, while the mirror position trails.
• Betting big on first rolls because nicks feel common. Fix: the 2 and 3 are always instant outs and the 11 usually is - keep first-roll stakes modest and let chances do the work.

Hazard Variations

Craps

Hazard with the main fixed at 7 - the simplification that conquered the world. The full casino version is our main table.

Chuck-luck hazard (grand hazard)

A later three-dice casino game that borrowed the name but none of the rules - totals under a cage, closer to sic bo than to true hazard.

French hasard

The continental court version, whose bankers formalized odds tables for each main - the first house-edge mathematics in dice.

Street craps

What hazard became on American streets: no called main, pure pass-or-fade. Play it on our Street table.

Crapless craps

A modern echo of hazard's spirit - meddling with which come-out numbers can hurt you. Its own table on this site.

Hazard FAQ

Hazard guides & strategy

• Hazard: the medieval game behind craps
• Where craps comes from
• More craps questions, answered in plain English

Still have a question about Hazard? Browse the full craps FAQ, look up a term like come-out roll or seven-out in the craps glossary, or compare Hazard with the other tables in the rules for every craps game.

Last updated 2026-07-03.