Hazard is a dice game dating back to the middle ages. Press the "Roll Dice!" button to start a game. See further below for an explanation of the rules, some history, and a bit about how hazard relates to the modern game of craps.

Rules of Hazard

Hazard is played with two dice, and a round proceeds in three stages (rules from Encyclopedia Britannica):

• Stage 1: you roll the dice until you roll one of the five possible main points, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 (that is, until the values of your two dice sum to one of these). This is now your main point for the round.
• Stage 2: you roll the dice once. If you roll your main point, you win. If you roll 2 or 3, you lose. If you roll 11 or 12, you win or lose depending on what your main point is, see the table below. If you roll any other value, this becomes your chance point and you proceed to the third stage.
• Stage 3: you roll the dice until you either roll your chance point, and win, or you roll your main point, and lose.

Main	Win	Lose
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

History of Hazard

Hazard is thought to date back to at least the 13th century. It is mentioned several times in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1387-1400), though Chaucer doesn't explain the rules. At the beginning of The Pardoner's Tale, for example, Chaucer describes a group of tavern patrons who enjoy playing hazard (or "hasard", which the translators simply translate as "gambling") among other pastimes:

In Flaundres whilom was a compaignye
Of yonge folk that haunteden folye,
As riot, hasard, stywes, and tavernes,
Where as with harpes, lutes, and gyternes,
They daunce and pleyen at dees bothe day and nyght

In Flanders once was a company
Of young folk who practiced folly,
Such as debauchery, gambling, brothels, and taverns,
Where with harps, lutes, and guitars,
They dance and play at dice both day and night

The image at the top of this page is taken from Alfonso X's Libro de los juegos, completed in 1283. This books contains descriptions of several dice games that somewhat resemble hazard, in that a round proceeds in successive stages depending on the results of rolls. One of them is called "hazard" (or "azar"), though the rules are different from the above, and it is played with three dice rather than two.

The rules above are taken from the 2006 Encyclopedia Britannica article. A variant of these rules, as for instance described in the 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, changes the first stage of the game so that instead of rolling for the main point, the caster simply selects which number between 5 and 9 (inclusive) is to be the main point for that round.

However, if the main point can be selected, it is to the player's advantage to always pick 7, since this produces the highest probability of winning, at 49.3%. If hazard is played with 7 as the fixed main point, it is equivalent to the contemporary game of craps. Hazard, under the variant rules, is thus likely the origin of the game of craps.

Below you can play hazard with the variant rules where you get to select the main point. Again, if you select 7, you're essentially playing craps. It is interesting to note that in both hazard and craps, it is mathematically possible for the game to go on indefinitely without resulting in a win or a loss, if neither the main point nor the chance point are ever rolled again in the third stage.

© 2023 Michael Rieppel