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Learn to Play Craps – Hints and Tactics: The Past of Craps
Be cunning, play cunning, and become versed in craps the correct way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately 100 years old. Modern craps come about from the ancient English game called Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s believed that Sir William’s horsemen played Hazard during a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when expelled by the British, the French moved 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 took their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it fair mathematically. It is believed that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which is derived from the term for the non-winning toss of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi barges and throughout the country. A good many think the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In 1907, Winn designed the modern craps layout. He put in place the Do not Pass line so players can wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he invented the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.