Be a Master of Craps – Pointers and Strategies: The Past of Craps
Be cunning, play clever, and master craps the correct way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately 100 years old. Modern craps evolved from the old English game called Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the beginnings of the game, but Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the twelfth century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s paladins enjoyed Hazard through a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when displaced by the British, the French moved down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which is acquired from the term for the losing toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the country. Many acknowledge the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the current craps setup. He appended the Do not Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to not win. Later, he created the boxes for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.