Pickup Craps – Hints and Techniques: The History of Craps
Be smart, play smart, and master craps the correct way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is just about a century old. Modern craps formed from the old Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the beginnings of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It is theorized that Sir William’s paladins played Hazard through a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the fortification’s name.
Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when exiled by the British, the French relocated down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it fair mathematically. It is believed that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which is acquired from the term for the non-winning toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi scows and throughout the nation. Many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In 1907, Winn created the modern craps layout. He put in place the Do not Pass line so players can bet on the dice to lose. Later, he established the spaces for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.