Learn to Play Craps – Hints and Strategies: The Background of Craps
Be cunning, play cunning, and learn how to play craps the right way!
Dice and dice games date back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately 100 years old. Modern craps developed from the ancient English game called Hazard. No one knows for certain the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is said to have been created by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It is supposed that Sir William’s knights played Hazard through a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the citadel’s name.
Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 18th century, when driven away by the English, the French headed south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is acquired from the term for the non-winning toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi barges and across the country. Many acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the modern craps layout. He put in place the Do not Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he created the spaces for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
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