Pickup Craps – Pointers and Strategies: The History of Craps
Be smart, play clever, and become versed in craps the correct way!
Dice and dice games goes back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps developed from the ancient English game called Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been made up by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s knights gambled on Hazard amid a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the castle’s name.
Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when exiled by the British, the French headed down south and discovered sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified 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 losing toss of two in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the country. A few acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the current craps setup. He added the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to not win. Later, he designed the spots for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.