Pickup Craps – Tricks and Techniques: The History of Craps
Be brilliant, play cunning, and pickup craps the correct way!
Dice and dice games date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is just about a century old. Modern craps formed from the 12th Century Anglo game called Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s believed that Sir William’s horsemen gambled on Hazard through a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the citadel’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when driven away by the English, the French headed down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they after a while became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was acquired from the term for the non-winning toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi river boats and across the nation. A great many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In 1907, Winn created the modern craps setup. He added the Don’t Pass line so players could wager on the dice to not win. At another time, he designed the spots for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.