How to play
Hazard is the old English two-dice game that craps eventually grew out of. One player, the caster, throws; you either back the caster or bet against them as the setter. You place chips, press Roll, and the round plays out until it has a winner.
A round has three stages.
- Finding the main. The dice are thrown until the total lands on 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9. Other totals don’t count yet. The first 5 to 9 becomes the main.
- The deciding throw. The next throw is checked against the main. A nick wins for the caster on the spot. An out loses on the spot. Anything else becomes the caster’s chance.
- Chance against main. Now the dice keep rolling until either the chance or the main shows up again. Chance first and the caster wins; main first and the setter wins.
Which totals nick and which throw out depends on the main:
| Main | Nick (caster wins) | Out (caster loses) |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | 5 | 2, 3, 11, 12 |
| 6 | 6, 12 | 2, 3, 11 |
| 7 | 7, 11 | 2, 3, 12 |
| 8 | 8, 12 | 2, 3, 11 |
| 9 | 9 | 2, 3, 11, 12 |
So with a main of 7, a following 7 or 11 is a nick, while 2, 3 or 12 is an out. A 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10 becomes the chance.
Placing bets
Pick a chip value from the tray (10, 50, 100 or 500), then tap a bet on the layout. Tap again to stack more. Undo takes back your last chip, Clear empties the layout, and Rebet puts down whatever you played last round. Bets go in steps of 10, from 10 up to 1,000 on a single spot, with no more than 5,000 on the table at once. If your credits run out you can take 1,000 free credits and carry on.
Bets and what they pay
The top row holds the two main sides; the bottom row holds three short bets that are settled early in the round.
| Bet | Wins when | Pays | Probability | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caster | the caster wins the round | 1 to 1 | 49.08% | 98.16% |
| Setter | the setter wins the round | 0.9 to 1 | 50.92% | 96.74% |
| Nick | the throw after the main is a nick | 4.9 to 1 | 16.20% | 95.60% |
| Out | the throw after the main is an out | 5.8 to 1 | 14.12% | 96.02% |
| Main 7 | the main turns out to be 7 | 2.8 to 1 | 25.00% | 95.00% |
Those figures come straight from counting dice combinations. The five possible mains turn up 4, 5, 6, 5 and 4 ways out of 24 qualifying throws, which is why a main of 7 arrives exactly a quarter of the time. For the chance race, only the two totals involved matter: a chance of 4 (3 ways) against a main of 7 (6 ways) wins 3 times in 9.
Strategy
Every bet here has a fixed return, and nothing you do between rounds changes it. The dice don’t remember the last round, a run of setter wins doesn’t make the caster “due”, and doubling up after a loss only makes the swings bigger. What you can choose is which bet you sit on.
- Caster is the strongest bet on the layout. At 98.16% it gives back more than anything else. The setter actually wins more rounds, but the 0.9 to 1 payout more than cancels that edge.
- Use the setter if you like smaller swings. It wins slightly more than half the time, so your balance drifts more gently, at the cost of about 1.4% more return.
- The short bets are for variety. Nick, Out and Main 7 all sit around 95–96%. Main 7 is settled the moment the main appears, so it’s the quickest result on the table.
Caster and setter are opposites, so covering both on the same round just pays a small toll on the setter side. Pick one.
If you want to see how the game evolved, Craps fixes the main at 7 and turns nicks and outs into naturals and craps. Chuck-a-luck is another old dice game with a very different bet structure.
If you enjoy Hazard, try Hi-Lo or Hi-Lo Roulette next.
