Be a Master of Craps – Tips and Schemes: The History of Craps
Posted in Craps on 08/19/2022 09:25 am by Philip
Be cunning, play clever, and learn how to play craps the correct way!
Dice and dice games goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is only about one hundred years old. Current craps come about from the old Anglo game called Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the origin of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It is theorized that Sir William’s soldiers gambled on Hazard through a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the citadel’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when displaced by the British, the French headed down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they at a later time became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was derived from the term for the losing throw of two in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi scows and all over the country. A good many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn designed the current craps layout. He appended the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he invented the spaces for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.