Learn to Play Craps – Pointers and Schemes: The Past of Craps
Be brilliant, play cunning, and pickup craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Crusades, but modern craps is only about one hundred years old. Current craps formed from the old English game called Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the origin of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s soldiers played Hazard through a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the citadel’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when driven away by the English, the French relocated down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they after a while became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which was derived from the term for the bad luck toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi barges and across the country. Many think the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In 1907, Winn designed the current craps setup. He added the Do not Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he invented the spaces for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.