Be a Master of Craps – Pointers and Strategies: The Background of Craps
Be clever, play clever, and master craps the proper way!
Dice and dice games goes all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately one hundred years old. Current craps formed from the 12th Century Anglo game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been made up by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s paladins wagered on Hazard through a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when exiled by the British, the French headed down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which was acquired from the name of the non-winning throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi scows and across the country. Many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In 1907, Winn designed the current craps setup. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so players could wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he developed the spaces for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.