Craps

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Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is only about a century old. Modern craps come about from the ancient English game called Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the birth of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been made up by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It is believed that Sir William’s paladins gambled on Hazard through a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the fortification’s name.

Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when banished by the English, the French relocated south and located refuge in southern Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is gotten from the term for the bad luck throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi scows and throughout the nation. A good many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In 1907, Winn designed the modern craps layout. He created the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he established the spots for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.