Pickup Craps – Pointers and Schemes: The Past of Craps
Be brilliant, play clever, and master craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is approximately 100 years old. Current craps developed from the old English game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for certain the birth of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been made up by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It is presumed that Sir William’s paladins wagered on Hazard during a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the castle’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when displaced by the English, the French headed south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their favorite 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 losing throw of two in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi river boats and all over the country. A good many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn designed the current craps setup. He appended the Do not Pass line so gamblers can wager on the dice to lose. Later, he developed the spots for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.