Pickup Craps – Pointers and Schemes: The History of Craps
Be smart, play smart, and pickup craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is only about a century old. Modern craps developed from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the origin of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s soldiers bet on Hazard through a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was gotten from the fortress’s name.
Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when exiled by the British, the French moved south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which was derived from the term for the non-winning throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi river boats and across the country. Many think the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the current craps layout. He put in place the Do not Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he developed the spaces for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
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