HAZARD, a gamno atAtee without tables, which.= be played byauy number of per sons. One persdn; callenhe caster (his oppOnent NOW bets with loth being called the setter), takes the box and dice, and makes a throw (called a main), which must be above 4, and not exceeding 9; and if the first throw made is not within these limits, the caster must throw until such a one occurs. After the caster has thrown the main, he throws, his own chance. The throws, 2, 3, 11, 12, are called crabs, and are losing throws for the caster, except in the following cases, viz., 12 when 6 is the main, 11 when 7 is the main, or 12 when 8 is the main; in these cases, and also when the caster's throw is the same as the main, the throw is called a nick, and the caster wins. If his throw be not a nick, or a crab, then, if he can repeat the same throw before the main turns up, he wins. If the caster throws crabs, not nicks, or if he fails to repeat his throw before the main turns up, the setter wins the stakes. The setter, on the whole, has
slightly the advantage of the caster, especially if 6 or 8 be the main, when his chance is to the caster's in the proportion of 7,295 to 6,961, or 22 to 21 nearly. Hazard is exclusively a game of calculation, and is never played merely with a view to amuse ment. Essentially an essay of calculations and combinations, requiring a cool and clear head to execute them, it has been an incitement to the wildest schemes under the name of "systems" that ever laughed mathematics to scorn. Hazard has been long a stand ing game at all the houses of play in Britain, in the face of a fact, that owing to the intricacy of the calculations of probabilities, the odds in favor of the professional player over the amateur arc 100 per cent. "In spirit, if not to the letter, it is the arith metic of dice."