Learn to Play Craps – Hints and Tactics: The Past of Craps
Be cunning, play cunning, and master craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is just about one hundred years old. Modern craps evolved from the ancient Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the origin of the game, although Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It is theorized that Sir William’s horsemen bet on Hazard amid a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was gotten from the citadel’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when expelled by the British, the French relocated south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which is derived from the name of the non-winning throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi river boats and across the country. A few think the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the current craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so players could wager on the dice to not win. At another time, he invented the boxes for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.