Craps Strategy

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Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately 100 years old. Current craps come about from the old Anglo game referred to as Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the beginnings of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s paladins wagered on Hazard through a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the castle’s name.

Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when driven away by the British, the French headed down south and found sanctuary in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became known as Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it fair mathematically. It is believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which was acquired from the term for the non-winning toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and across the country. Many think the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the current craps layout. He put in place the Do not Pass line so players can bet on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he designed the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.