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Master Craps – Pointers and Plans: The Background of Craps
Be cunning, play smart, and pickup craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Crusades, but modern craps is only about one hundred years old. Modern craps come about from the old English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It is supposed that Sir William’s soldiers played Hazard during a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was gotten from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when exiled by the British, the French relocated down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was gotten from the name of the non-winning toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi river boats and throughout the country. Most think the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In 1907, Winn assembled the modern craps layout. He appended the Do not Pass line so players could bet on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he established the spots for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.