Pickup Craps – Hints and Tactics: The History of Craps
Be smart, play brilliant, and discover how to play craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately one hundred years old. Modern craps come about from the old Anglo game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the birth of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It is theorized that Sir William’s paladins bet on Hazard amid a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when displaced by the English, the French relocated south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they brought their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which was gotten from the term for the losing throw of two in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi scows and throughout the nation. A great many think the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the modern craps setup. He appended the Do not Pass line so players can wager on the dice to lose. At another time, he established the spaces for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.