Pickup Craps – Pointers and Tactics: The Past of Craps

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

Be smart, play smart, and master craps the proper way!

Dice and dice games date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps come about from the ancient English game called Hazard. No one knows for certain the birth of the game, although Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It is theorized that Sir William’s paladins gambled on Hazard during a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the fortress’s name.

Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when banished by the English, the French headed down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which was gotten from the name of the bad luck toss of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi scows and all over the country. A few think the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In 1907, Winn designed the modern craps setup. He put in place the Do not Pass line so gamblers can wager on the dice to not win. Later, he designed the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.