Be a Master of Craps – Pointers and Plans: The Past of Craps

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Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps come about from the old Anglo game called Hazard. No one knows for certain the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is said to have been created by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It is theorized that Sir William’s paladins bet on Hazard amid a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the fortification’s name.

Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when exiled by the English, the French headed down south and found sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it more mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which is derived from the name of the losing toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and across the country. A great many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can wager on the dice to lose. Later, he invented the spots for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.