Master Craps – Hints and Schemes: The History of Craps
Be cunning, play cunning, and pickup craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is just about a century old. Current craps formed from the old Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for sure the origin of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s horsemen wagered on Hazard during a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when driven away by the English, the French relocated south and settled in the south of 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 mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was acquired from the term for the bad luck throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi barges and across the nation. Many think the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In 1907, Winn built the modern craps layout. He added the Don’t Pass line so players could wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he designed the spots for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
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