Pickup Craps – Tricks and Tactics: The History of Craps
Posted in Craps on 04/20/2025 05:25 pm by Donovan
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Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps come about from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is said to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It is supposed that Sir William’s paladins enjoyed Hazard through a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the citadel’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 18th century, when driven away by the English, the French moved south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is acquired from the name of the losing toss of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and across the nation. A good many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn created the modern craps setup. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so players could bet on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he invented the spots for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.