Master Craps – Tips and Techniques: The History of Craps
Be cunning, play clever, and pickup craps the proper way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is only about one hundred years old. Modern craps formed from the 12th Century English game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for sure the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s horsemen wagered on Hazard during a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when driven away by the British, the French moved down south and found sanctuary in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was acquired from the name of the losing toss of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi river boats and across the nation. A few acknowledge the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the current craps setup. He appended the Do not Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. Later, he established the spaces for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
