Be a Master of Craps – Tricks and Strategies: The Background of Craps

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Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately one hundred years old. Current craps come about from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the birth of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the twelfth century. It is believed that Sir William’s paladins enjoyed Hazard during a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the castle’s name.

Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when expelled by the British, the French headed down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns altered the title to craps, which was gotten from the name of the losing toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi barges and across the nation. A few think the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In 1907, Winn developed the modern craps setup. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he designed the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.