Craps TipsBeginner Craps Tips

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Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Crusades, but modern craps is just about one hundred years old. Current craps evolved from the 12th Century Anglo game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the birth of the game, but Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It is supposed that Sir William’s knights wagered on Hazard through a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.

Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when displaced by the British, the French moved down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they at a later time became known as Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they brought their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which was derived from the term for the non-winning toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the nation. Many acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In 1907, Winn assembled the modern craps setup. He appended the Do not Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he invented the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.