Pickup Craps – Pointers and Tactics: The Background of Craps
Posted in Craps on 12/30/2017 09:25 am by Donovan
Be clever, play smart, 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 modern craps is approximately a century old. Current craps evolved from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It is presumed that Sir William’s horsemen gambled on Hazard during a blockade on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when exiled by the English, the French relocated down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they brought their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which was acquired from the term for the non-winning throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi barges and all over the nation. A good many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the current craps setup. He added the Do not Pass line so players can bet on the dice to lose. Later, he established the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.