Be a Master of Craps – Pointers and Schemes: The History of Craps

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Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately 100 years old. Current craps formed from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is said to have been made up by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s presumed that Sir William’s soldiers wagered on Hazard through a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.

Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when banished by the English, the French moved south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which was derived from the term for the bad luck throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi scows and throughout the country. A few acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In 1907, Winn designed the current craps layout. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so players could bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he developed the boxes for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.