n the former case it
was the seventh part of the money, whatever it was, L1 or L100; in the
latter case, a ninth. The odds from the beginning of the deal insensibly
stole upon the player at every pull, till from the first supposed 4 per
cent. it became about 15 per cent.

At the middle of the 18th century the expenses of a Faro bank, in all
its items of servants, rent, puffs, and other incidental charges of
candles, wine, arrack-punch, suppers, and safeguard money, &c., in
Covent Garden, amounted to L1000 per annum. Throughout this century Faro
was the favourite game. 'Our life here,' writes Gilly Williams to George
Selwyn in 1752, 'would not displease you, for we eat and drink well, and
the Earl of Coventry holds a Pharaoh-bank every night to us, which we
have plundered considerably.' Charles James Fox preferred Faro to any
other game.

HAZARD.

This game was properly so called; for it made a man or undid him in the
twinkling of an eye.

It is played with only two dice; 20 persons may be engaged, or as many
as will. The chief things in the game are the Main and the Chance. The
chance is the caster's and the main is the setter's.

There can be no main thrown above 9, nor under 5; so that 5, 6, 7, 8,
and 9 are all the mains which are flung at Hazard. Chances and nicks are
from 4 to 10. Thus 4 is a chance to 9, 5 to 8, 6 to 7, 7 to 6, 8 to 5,
and 9 and 10 a chance to 5, 6, 7, and 8; in short, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and
10 are chances to any main, if any of these 'nick' it not.

Nicks are either when the chance is the same with the main, as 5 and
5, 6 and 6, 7 and 7, and so on; or 6 and 12, 7 and 11, 8 and 12, where
observe, that 12 is out to 9, 7, and 5, and 11 is out to 9, 8, 6, and 5.

The better to illustrate the game we shall give an example. Let 7 be the
main named. The caster throws 5, and that is his chance; and so he has
5 to 7. If the caster throws his own chance he wins all the money set to
him by the setter; but if he throws 7, which is the main, he must pay as
much money as is on the table.

If, again, 7 be the main, and the caster throws 11, that is a nick, and
sweeps away all the money on the table; but if he throws a chance he
must wait which will come first.

The worst chances in the game are 4 to 10, and 7 is considered the best
and easiest main to be thrown. It might be thought that 6 and 8 should
admit of no difference in advantage to 7, but it is just the reverse,
although 6, 7, and 8 have eight