Pickup Craps – Tricks and Plans: The Past of Craps
Be smart, play smart, and learn how to play craps the ideal way!
Dice and dice games goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately 100 years old. Modern craps come about from the 12th Century English game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been created by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s knights gambled on Hazard during a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when driven away by the British, the French headed down south and discovered sanctuary in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they brought their best-loved game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was derived from the name of the bad luck toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi river boats and all over the country. A great many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In 1907, Winn created the current craps layout. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to not win. At another time, he established the boxes for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.