Pickup Craps – Hints and Schemes: The Background of Craps
Be cunning, play brilliant, and pickup craps the right way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is only about a century old. Current craps developed from the ancient English game called Hazard. No one knows for certain the birth of the game, however Hazard is said to have been created by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It is supposed that Sir William’s paladins played Hazard through a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the castle’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when driven away by the English, the French headed south and found refuge in southern Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their preferred game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it fair mathematically. It is said that the Cajuns altered the title to craps, which was derived from the name of the losing toss of two in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the nation. A good many think the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps layout. He created the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. Later, he created the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.