Pickup Craps – Tricks and Tactics: The Background of Craps
Be brilliant, play smart, and master craps the proper way!
Dice and dice games date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is only about one hundred years old. Modern craps evolved from the 12th Century Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for sure the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is said to have been created by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s horsemen bet on Hazard during a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.
Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when driven away by the English, the French moved down south and found sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is gotten from the name of the bad luck toss of two in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the nation. A few think the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the current craps layout. He created the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he established the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.