Learn to Play Craps – Tricks and Schemes: The Background of Craps
Be clever, play cunning, and pickup craps the proper way!
Dice and dice games goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately a century old. Current craps formed from the old Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for certain the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s soldiers gambled on Hazard during a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the castle’s name.
Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when banished by the British, the French relocated south and found refuge in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their preferred game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it more mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which is gotten from the name of the losing throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the country. Many think the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the current craps setup. He added the Don’t Pass line so players can bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he designed the spaces for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.