Craps Tips

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Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is just about a century old. Modern craps come about from the 12th Century Anglo game referred to as Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It is theorized that Sir William’s paladins bet on Hazard during a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.

Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when banished by the English, the French moved south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they fled 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 adjusted the name to craps, which is derived from the term for the non-winning toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi river boats and across the nation. Many think the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the current craps setup. He appended the Do not Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. Later, he established the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.