Be a Master of Craps – Hints and Schemes: The Background of Craps

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Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately one hundred years old. Modern craps come about from the 12th Century English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It is presumed that Sir William’s soldiers gambled on Hazard amid a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the castle’s name.

Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when displaced by the English, the French relocated down south and discovered sanctuary in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their best-loved game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which is derived from the term for the losing throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi scows and across the nation. Most think the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn created the modern craps setup. He appended the Do not Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he created the boxes for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.