Discover how to Wager on Craps – Hints and Tactics: the Recorded History of Craps
Posted in Craps on 02/05/2010 07:21 pm by Philip
Dice and dice games date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is only about one hundred years old. Modern day craps developed from the archaic English game named Hazard. No one is certain of the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is considered to have been created by the British man, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It is theorized that Sir William’s soldiers played Hazard during a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was developed from the fortification’s name.
Initial French colonizers imported the dice game Hazard to French North America (the colony of Acadia, which is Nova Scotia today). In the 18th century, when driven away by the English, the French headed south and located sanctuary in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the dice game and made it more mathematically honest. It is believed that the Cajuns amended the name to craps, which was derived from the name of the non-winning toss of two in the game of Hazard, called "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and across the territory. Many think the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the modern craps table design. He included the Do not Pass line so gamblers could wager on the shooter to not win. Later, he developed the areas for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.