Master Craps – Pointers and Tactics: The History of Craps

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Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately a century old. Current craps developed from the old English game called Hazard. No one knows for sure the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s knights enjoyed Hazard during a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was gotten from the fortress’s name.

Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when exiled by the English, the French relocated south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it fair mathematically. It is said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which was derived from the name of the bad luck throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi river boats and all over the country. Most consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the modern craps layout. He put in place the Do not Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to lose. Later, he developed the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.