Craps history

According to the opinion of Geoffrey W. Dibben, a well known gambling legend, Craps dates back even before Middle Ages. The Arabs used to play gambling game using small numbered cubes which were called ‘azzahr’. With the passage of time, game became popular across the whole Mediterranean in France and after some time it was renamed as 'hasard'. After few years, popularity of this game reached to England just few years before 1550 AD, where its name was respelled ‘hazard’.

The roll bearing lowest value was called crabs. Though French adopted this English term but spelled it in their own way as 'crabes'. In early 1700's, ‘Craps’ crossed Atlantic and reached Acadia which is known as eastern Canada nowadays. During the same period, some new rules were formulated by Montmort. In 1755, English took control of Acadia and renamed it as Nova Scotia. English people forced French-speaking Acadians to leave the place and as a result of that Acadians roamed all over the continent and finally settled in Louisiana. There, these people were called Cajuns. These people started to play this dice game there but dropped the term 'hasard'. Gradually, they started to call this game 'creps' or 'crebs'.

John H. Winn, an American, is known as the father of modern craps as he formulated many rules to make this game more interesting. By introducing new methods to play craps, he eliminated the problem of loaded dice. Winn also redesigned the table of modern craps that widened the range of beting options.

With the increasing use of Internet, some casinos started to conduct Craps online and within very short period, it became most played online casino game. Though craps has passed through various historical turmoils but inspite of that Craps hasn’t changed much. Even today, some rules are the same as used to be during 1700s.


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