Craps Tips

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Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps evolved from the ancient English game called Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the origin of the game, but Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s presumed that Sir William’s knights gambled on Hazard amid a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the castle’s name.

Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 18th century, when banished by the British, the French moved down south and discovered sanctuary in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is derived from the term for the bad luck toss of two in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi barges and across the country. A good many acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps layout. He created the Do not Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he invented the spaces for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.