Master Craps – Tricks and Tactics: The History of Craps
Be brilliant, play clever, and master craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is just about one hundred years old. Modern craps come about from the ancient Anglo game called Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the beginnings of the game, but Hazard is said to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s believed that Sir William’s horsemen gambled on Hazard amid a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 18th century, when exiled by the British, the French moved down south and discovered sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was derived from the name of the bad luck toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi barges and all over the nation. A few acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In 1907, Winn created the current craps setup. He added the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he established the spaces for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.