Pickup Craps – Tips and Strategies: The History of Craps
Be smart, play clever, and pickup craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps come about from the ancient Anglo game referred to as Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the beginnings of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s soldiers bet on Hazard during a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the castle’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when displaced by the English, the French headed down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which was derived from the name of the bad luck toss of two in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi scows and across the nation. A good many acknowledge the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn designed the modern craps setup. He added the Do not Pass line so players can wager on the dice to lose. Later, he created the spots for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.