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Be a Master of Craps – Pointers and Plans: The History of Craps
Be clever, play smart, and learn how to play craps the ideal way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is just about one hundred years old. Current craps evolved from the old English game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for certain the beginnings of the game, although Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It is theorized that Sir William’s horsemen played Hazard through a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when banished by the English, the French headed down south and found sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which was acquired from the term for the non-winning throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the nation. A few acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In 1907, Winn created the modern craps layout. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to not win. At another time, he established the spots for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.