Master Craps – Tricks and Techniques: The Background of Craps
Posted in Craps on 03/15/2019 09:25 am by Donovan
Be smart, play smart, and master craps the correct way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is only about one hundred years old. Current craps developed from the ancient English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the origin of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been made up by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s soldiers played Hazard through a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the citadel’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when expelled by the English, the French relocated down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they after a while became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it more mathematically fair. It is believed that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which is derived from the term for the bad luck throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi scows and throughout the country. A good many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the modern craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to not win. At another time, he created the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.