Master Craps – Hints and Plans: The Background of Craps

Be cunning, play cunning, and master craps the correct way!

Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps come about from the 12th Century Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the beginnings of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It is presumed that Sir William’s knights bet on Hazard during a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the citadel’s name.

Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when driven away by the British, the French moved down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which was derived from the name of the bad luck throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the nation. Many acknowledge the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn created the modern craps layout. He created the Do not Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he designed the boxes for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.

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