Become Versed in Craps – Pointers and Strategies: The History of Craps

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Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is only about a century old. Current craps come about from the old English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s knights played Hazard through a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the citadel’s name.

Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when exiled by the British, the French headed south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was gotten from the name of the non-winning toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi barges and all over the country. Most consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In 1907, Winn designed the current craps setup. He created the Do not Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to not win. At another time, he designed the spots for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.