Be a Master of Craps – Tricks and Techniques: The History of Craps
Be cunning, play clever, and learn how to play craps the correct way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is approximately a century old. Current craps evolved from the 12th Century Anglo game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s horsemen played Hazard through a siege on the fortification 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 1700s, when expelled by the English, the French headed south and discovered sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they at a later time became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they brought their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which was derived from the name of the non-winning toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and across the country. Many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn created the modern craps setup. He added the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he designed the boxes for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
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