Become Versed in Craps – Tricks and Strategies: The History of Craps
Be brilliant, play brilliant, and master craps the correct way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately 100 years old. Modern craps formed from the old English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the birth of the game, although Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It is presumed that Sir William’s horsemen bet on Hazard during a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the citadel’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when driven away by the English, the French moved south and discovered safety in southern Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they brought their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was derived from the term for the losing toss of two in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the nation. A good many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In 1907, Winn developed the current craps layout. He appended the Don’t Pass line so players can bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he designed the boxes for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.