Archive for June, 2025

Pickup Craps – Pointers and Plans: The Background of Craps

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

Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes 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. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the twelfth century. It is supposed that Sir William’s soldiers played Hazard through a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the castle’s name.

Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when expelled by the British, the French moved down south and found sanctuary in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it more mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which is gotten from the term for the losing throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi river boats and all over the nation. A good many think the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn created the current craps setup. He added the Don’t Pass line so players can bet on the dice to not win. Later, he established the boxes for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.