Master Craps – Tricks and Tactics: The Past of Craps
Be clever, play smart, and discover how to play craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is only about 100 years old. Current craps formed from the old Anglo game called Hazard. No one knows for certain the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It is presumed that Sir William’s knights enjoyed Hazard during a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when banished by the English, the French moved south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which is derived from the term for the non-winning toss of two in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi barges and all over the country. Most acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In 1907, Winn created the current craps setup. He added the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to not win. At another time, he created the spaces for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.