Be clever, play cunning, and master craps the proper way!
Dice and dice games goes all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately 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, but Hazard is said to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It’s presumed that Sir William’s horsemen enjoyed Hazard during a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when driven away by the English, the French moved south and found refuge in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was acquired from the name of 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 across the nation. Many think the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the current craps layout. He appended the Don’t Pass line so players could wager on the dice to lose. Later, he created the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
This entry was posted on January 10, 2016, 2:21 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.