Be a Master of Craps – Pointers and Techniques: The Past of Craps
Be brilliant, play smart, and discover how to play craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately a century old. Current craps formed from the ancient English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It is believed that Sir William’s paladins played Hazard amid a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when driven away by the British, the French relocated down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It is believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which is derived from the term for the losing throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and across the country. Most consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In 1907, Winn created the modern craps layout. He added the Do not Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. Later, he developed the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.