Be a Master of Craps – Tips and Strategies: The Background of Craps
Be smart, play smart, and learn how to play craps the proper way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is only about one hundred years old. Modern craps developed from the ancient English game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the birth of the game, but Hazard is said to have been created by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s horsemen bet on Hazard through a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the castle’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when exiled by the British, the French moved down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s believed that the Cajuns altered the title to craps, which was derived from the term for the non-winning throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and across the nation. Many think the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn created the modern craps layout. He created the Don’t Pass line so players could wager on the dice to not win. At another time, he established the boxes for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.