Master Craps – Hints and Strategies: The Background of Craps
Be clever, play cunning, and master craps the right way!
Dice and dice games date back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps come about from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s presumed that Sir William’s knights gambled on Hazard amid a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the castle’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when expelled by the English, the French headed south and discovered safety in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which is 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 moved to the Mississippi barges and across the nation. Many think the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn created the modern craps layout. He put in place the Do not Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to lose. Later, he established the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.