Become Versed in Craps – Pointers and Schemes: The History of Craps


Be smart, play cunning, and pickup craps the correct way!

Dice and dice games goes all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is only about a century old. Modern craps come about from the 12th Century English game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s paladins played Hazard through a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the citadel’s name.

Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when exiled by the English, the French moved down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it fair mathematically. It is believed that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was acquired from the term for the non-winning toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the country. A good many think the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the modern craps setup. He appended the Do not Pass line so players could wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he developed the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.

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