Master Craps – Pointers and Schemes: The Background of Craps

Be brilliant, play brilliant, and discover how to play craps the proper way!

Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is just about 100 years old. Current craps come about from the 12th Century Anglo game called Hazard. No one knows for sure the origin of the game, however Hazard is said to have been created by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It’s believed that Sir William’s knights gambled on Hazard through a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the castle’s name.

Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when driven away by the British, the French headed down south and located refuge in southern Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which was derived from the name of the bad luck toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi barges and throughout the country. Many think the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In 1907, Winn built the current craps setup. He added the Do not Pass line so players can wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he invented the spots for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.

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