Learn to Play Craps – Pointers and Techniques: The Past of Craps
Be smart, play cunning, and master craps the ideal way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is just about one hundred years old. Modern craps evolved from the ancient Anglo game called Hazard. No one knows for sure the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It is believed that Sir William’s soldiers bet on Hazard amid a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when banished by the British, the French headed south and settled in southern Louisiana where they after a while became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which was acquired from the term for the non-winning toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi river boats and throughout the country. Many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the current craps setup. He added the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to lose. At another time, he invented the spots for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.