Become Versed in Craps – Tricks and Schemes: The Past of Craps
Be clever, play brilliant, and learn how to play craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately one hundred years old. Current craps formed from the old Anglo game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It is presumed that Sir William’s soldiers wagered on Hazard through a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the citadel’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when displaced by the British, the French moved south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns altered the title to craps, which was gotten from the name of the losing toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi barges and all over the nation. Most acknowledge the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so players can bet on the dice to not win. At another time, he established the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
