Become Versed in Craps – Pointers and Techniques: The Background of Craps
Be brilliant, play cunning, and master craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is just about 100 years old. Current craps evolved from the ancient Anglo game called Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is said to have been made up by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It is presumed that Sir William’s paladins bet on Hazard during a blockade on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when expelled by the English, the French headed down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their favorite 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 gotten from the name of the bad luck throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the country. A few think the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the modern craps setup. He created the Do not Pass line so players could bet on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he designed the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.