Pickup Craps – Tricks and Schemes: The Past of Craps
Be clever, play brilliant, and become versed in craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately 100 years old. Current craps come about from the ancient Anglo game called Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the beginnings of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s soldiers bet on Hazard amid a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when driven away by the British, the French moved south and located safety in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it more mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which was gotten from the term for the losing toss of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the country. A good many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the modern craps layout. He added the Do not Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he developed the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.