Master Craps – Tips and Tactics: The History of Craps

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Dice and dice games goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is just about a century old. Current craps formed from the old English game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the beginnings of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s paladins bet on Hazard amid a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the citadel’s name.

Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when displaced by the British, the French moved down south and discovered refuge in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was gotten from the term for the losing toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the nation. A few consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In 1907, Winn developed the current craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so players could bet on the dice to not win. Later, he established the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.