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Volume I

The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz, Volume II

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Piquet, Basset, Faro, Hazard, Passe-Dix, Put, Cross And Pile,Thimble-R

'The choice of a main is quite optional: many prefer 7 because
they may make a coup at once by throwing that number or by
throwing 11, which is a "nick" to 7, but to 7 only. Shrewd
players, however, prefer some other main, with the view of having
a more favourable chance to depend upon of winning both stake and
odds. For example, let us reverse what was mentioned above, and
suppose the caster to call 5 and throw 7; he then will have 7 as
his chance to win with odds of 3 to 2 IN HIS FAVOUR.

'Such is the game of English Hazard, at which large fortunes have
been won and lost. It is exceedingly simple, and at times can
become painfully interesting. Cheating is impossible, unless
with loaded dice, which have been used and detected by their
splitting in two, but never, perhaps, unless at some disreputable
silver hell. The mode of remunerating the owner of the rooms was
a popular one. The loser never paid, and the winner only when he
succeeded in throwing three mains in succession; and even then
the "box fee," as it was called, was limited to 5s.--a mere
trifle from what he must have gained. In French Hazard a bank is
constituted at a board of green cloth, and the proceedings are
carried on in a more subdued and regular mode than is the case in
the rough-and-ready English game. Every stake that is "set" is
covered by the bank, so that the player runs no risk of losing a
large amount, when, if successful, he may win but a trifling one;
but en revanche, the scale of odds is so altered as to put the
double zero of roulette and the "aprez" of Rouge et Noir to the
blush, and to operate most predjudicially to the player. In no
case is an equal rate of odds between main and chance laid by the
French "banquier," as is insisted on by the English groomporter;
while again "direct nicks" alone are recognized by the former.
Very extraordinary runs of luck have occurred at Hazard, one
player sometimes throwing five, seven, and even eleven mains in a
single hand. In such cases as these the peculiar feature in the
French game becomes valuable, the bank being prepared to pay all
winnings, while, generally speaking, a hand of six or seven mains
at English Hazard would exhaust all the funds of the players, and
leave the caster in the position of "setting the table" and
finding the stakes totally unnoticed or only partially covered.

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