Craps – It’s a Dicey Situation

Do you like to toss up the dice? Craps is the game for you. Craps history is extremely rich and dates back to thousands of years.

Dice And Ancient World:

Dices are considered to be the most ancient gambling tools. It has been found from a research conducted by Scarne that dices and their associated games have prevailed throughout the early world. Roman emperors such as Augustin, Caligula and Nero were dedicated dice players. Dice games prevailed amongst ancient Egyptians also. “Mahabharata”, an ancient Indian epic tells about a number of stories where warriors lose their fortune by playing dice games. Dice games prevailed amongst Arab world, Koreans as well as American Indians too. All these great ancient civilizations are part of craps history.

Origin

Various theories are prevalent regarding craps history. Evidences suggest that craps may have been created during the time of the Roman Empire. Pig knuckles were shaved down by the Roman soldiers for the purpose of forming shapes resembling cubes. These cubes were then tossed over their shields which were inverted for the purpose of playing some game.

There is one more theory which suggests that craps is quite similar to azzahr or rather, Hazard. This game was played by Arab people during middle ages. Hazard’s formal rules were established in early 1700’s by Montmort. The lowest value roll in Hazard was referred as crabs. Because of the similarity of this term with craps, few people think that the name craps originated this way while others are of the view that the name has come from the French term Crapeaud (for toad).

It is also said that Hazard actually originated in England during the period of crusades. Crusaders played this game as a pastime while conquering a castle which was called Asart or Hazarth in 1125 A.D. hence, the name Hazard originated. It was hugely popular in England as can be found by its frequent reference in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury tales

The game reached Acadia, a French colony, after crossing the Atlantic in the early part of the 18th century. Nearly around 1755, Acadia was lost by the French and Acadians shifted their base to Louisiana. American English eventually changed the term crabs to craps in 1843, thus signifying an important event in craps history. Other terms such as crap table, crap game, crap shooter, etc. started evolving by 1885.

John Winn is considered to be modern craps’ father and hence, he holds an important place in craps history. He totally changed the face of craps history by developing the game even further. He is primarily responsible for the creation of street craps game as well as bank craps game with tables and layouts.

Types

Three kinds of craps are generally played today which can be related with the craps history. These are:

• Bank Craps – This is what is normally seen by us in casinos. The word “bank” has been coined in this term because of the reason that something (casino) or someone must cover all of the best made by players. This is referred as getting the game banked. Hence, by doing this, players are made to play against entire house.

• Street Craps – This game is played on streets by making a shooter establish a certain point for the purpose of making that point. Bets are laid by bettors on whether the shooter will be successful in making the point (on point) or not (on 7). The shooter is required to be “faded” (getting the bet covered) by someone for progressing the game.

• Online craps – This is involved with playing craps over the internet.

Today, a huge amount of money is wagered in craps. So, when are you starting to play craps for being a part of the rich craps history?