Learn to Play Craps – Tricks and Schemes: The History of Craps
Be brilliant, play smart, and learn how to play craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is only about a century old. Current craps come about from the 12th Century Anglo game called Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the birth of the game, although Hazard is said to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It is believed that Sir William’s knights played Hazard through a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the castle’s name.
Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when expelled by the English, the French moved south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was gotten from the term for the losing toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and across the nation. Many think the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn designed the current craps layout. He added the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he designed the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
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