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Be a Master of Craps – Hints and Plans: The History of Craps

Be brilliant, play cunning, and master craps the right way!

Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Crusades, but modern craps is just about one hundred years old. Current craps evolved from the ancient Anglo game called Hazard. No one knows for certain the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s horsemen played Hazard during a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the citadel’s name.

Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when displaced by the English, the French moved down south and found sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which is derived from the term for the losing throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi river boats and all over the country. A good many acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the modern craps layout. He appended the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to not win. At another time, he created the boxes for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.