Pickup Craps – Hints and Techniques: The Past of Craps
Be clever, play cunning, and master craps the correct way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is only about a century old. Current craps developed from the old Anglo game called Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the origin of the game, but Hazard is said to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It is believed that Sir William’s soldiers enjoyed Hazard during a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when banished by the British, the French relocated down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which is derived from the name of the bad luck toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the country. A few consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the modern craps layout. He appended the Do not Pass line so gamblers could bet 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.