Pickup Craps – Hints and Plans: The Past of Craps
Be brilliant, play smart, and master craps the ideal way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately a century old. Current craps come about from the old Anglo game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s soldiers bet on Hazard through a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the castle’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when expelled by the British, the French headed down south and located sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it more mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns altered the title to craps, which is derived from the name of the non-winning toss of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi river boats and all over the nation. Many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In 1907, Winn created the modern craps layout. He added the Don’t Pass line so players can wager on the dice to lose. At another time, he created the spaces for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.