Be a Master of Craps – Pointers and Techniques: The History of Craps
Be cunning, play clever, and pickup craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately one hundred years old. Modern craps developed from the old English game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for sure the birth of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s paladins gambled on Hazard amid a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when expelled by the English, the French moved south and located sanctuary in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns altered the title to craps, which was acquired from the name of the non-winning throw of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi barges and across the country. A few acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps layout. He put in place the Do not Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. At another time, he designed the spaces for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.