Master Craps – Tricks and Plans: The History of Craps
Be cunning, play smart, and master craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is only about a century old. Current craps evolved from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It is supposed that Sir William’s knights gambled on Hazard during a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when displaced by the British, the French relocated down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is derived from the name of the bad luck toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the country. A few think the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In 1907, Winn built the modern craps setup. He created the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to not win. At another time, he developed the boxes for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.