06.22
Learn to Play Craps – Hints and Tactics: The History of Craps
Be brilliant, play brilliant, and master craps the correct way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately one hundred years old. Modern craps formed from the old English game called Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been created by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s presumed that Sir William’s paladins enjoyed Hazard through a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the citadel’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when exiled by the British, the French headed south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it fair mathematically. It is said that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is 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 extended to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the country. A few consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In 1907, Winn built the current craps setup. He added the Don’t Pass line so players could wager on the dice to lose. At another time, he established the spaces for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.