Be clever, play cunning, 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 current craps is only about a century old. Current craps evolved from the ancient Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for sure the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s presumed that Sir William’s horsemen gambled on Hazard through a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was gotten from the fortification’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when expelled by the English, the French relocated south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they brought their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which was acquired from the name of the losing throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi scows and across the country. Most think the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the modern craps layout. He put in place the Do not Pass line so players can wager on the dice to not win. Later, he established the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
This entry was posted on March 9, 2025, 9:25 am and is filed under Craps. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.