Pickup Craps – Pointers and Schemes: The Past of Craps
Be brilliant, play clever, and pickup craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is just about a century old. Modern craps come about from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. No one knows for sure the birth of the game, but Hazard is said to have been created by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s soldiers wagered on Hazard through a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the castle’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when banished by the British, the French relocated down south and found sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was gotten from the name of the losing throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi scows and throughout the nation. Many acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps setup. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can wager on the dice to lose. Later, he invented the boxes for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.