Become Versed in Craps – Tips and Plans: The Background of Craps

Be clever, play brilliant, and learn how to play craps the correct way!

Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is only about a century old. Modern craps evolved from the old English game called Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s knights gambled on Hazard during a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the castle’s name.

Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 18th century, when displaced by the English, the French moved south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was gotten from the name of the bad luck toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the nation. A few think the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In 1907, Winn created the modern craps layout. He created the Do not Pass line so players could wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he developed the spots for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.

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