Pickup Craps – Tricks and Tactics: The Background of Craps
Be smart, play cunning, and learn how to play craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes back to the Crusades, but current craps is just about a century old. Current craps developed from the ancient Anglo game called Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s presumed that Sir William’s knights gambled on Hazard through a blockade on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the citadel’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when exiled by the British, the French moved down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it more mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which is derived from the name of the losing toss of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi scows and across the country. A great many acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In 1907, Winn developed the current craps setup. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so players could bet on the dice to lose. At another time, he created the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.