Master Craps – Tips and Schemes: The Background of Craps
Be smart, play brilliant, and become versed in craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps formed from the old English game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for certain the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s paladins played Hazard during a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the castle’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 located safety in southern Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they brought their favorite game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is acquired from the term for the non-winning throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi scows and throughout the nation. Many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps layout. He appended the Don’t Pass line so players could bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he developed the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
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