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Craps History
The dice are the oldest gambling tools. According to Scarne’s research, the dice and the games associated with them can be found all over the ancient world. Roman Emperors Augustin, Nero and Caligula were devoted dice players. They even tried to cheat at the game. Modern looking cubical die was found in Egypt and it was dated at 600 B.C. Indian ancient epic "Mahabharata" tells the stories about the warriors throwing the dice and loosing fortunes. Koreans were also big fans of the dice in the early days. American Indians used four-sided knucklebones to create their dice games. The fact that Arabic language uses the same word for a knucklebone and a die means that the dice were popular in Arab world for a longer time that anybody can remember.
The origin of the dice can be traced to a prehistoric time when a primordial fortuneteller used to throw sacred arrows, bones, sticks and stones upon the ground trying to predict the future for his tribe. Before they became gambling devices, the dice were a shaman’s attributes. After that they went through a long evolution of shape, size, form and markings. They were made of wood, stones, bones, animal teeth and horns, nutshells and seeds. In Greek and Roman civilizations the dice were made of more expensive materials like ivory, precious stones and metals, and porcelain. The material for modern casino dice (perfect dice) is hard cellulose. The dice edges are razor sharp, and the corners are needle sharp. The cellulose is transparent to avoid dice loading.
The history of the dice and the dice games in general is few thousands years old. However, the history of modern craps is a lot shorter – only hundred years old.
There are several takes on the true craps history. To help you better understand and play online craps, we detail two takes on craps history below.
The first take on craps history - According to Richard Epstein, craps is descended from an earlier game known as Hazard, that dates to the Middle Ages. The formal rules for Hazard were established by Montmort early in the 1700s. The origin of the name craps is shrouded in doubt, but it may have come from the English crabs, or from the French Crapeaud (for toad).
There is historical evidence that it was played by the soldiers in twelfth century during the Third Crusade, led by the three most powerful kings of Western Europe: Frederick Barbarossa of The Holy Roman Empire, Philip Augustus of France and Richard The Lion-Heart of England. Hazard was probably created long before the crusaders. It is possible that the first English settlers on "Mayflower" brought it to America.
English Hazard became very popular in New Orleans around 1800, where French called it craps. After that rules and odds changed many times. Few new variations of the game popped up which were simpler and faster than original Hazard. One variation – Table Off game – became especially popular with gambling establishments at the end of 19th century. At that time casino tables and a simple layout, featuring the 6 and 8, the Field, the Win and the Come bets, were introduced. However, the players could bet only with the dice against the House.
Finally, John H. Winn revolutionized the game and made it possible for the craps players to bet right and wrong. He improved a layout accordingly and drew a space for Don’t Pass bets. In 1931 casino gambling was legalized in the State of Nevada and Casino Craps (Las Vegas style) became popular all over the world.
The second take on craps history - by author Mark Pilarski states Back before the Middle Ages, the Arabs played a game using little numbered cubes, called azzahr (meaning "the die"). The game showed up across the Mediterranean in France, where it was renamed hasard, then jumped the English Channel to England some time before 1500 AD where it was given the English spelling of the same word, hazard. The roll of lowest value in that game was called crabs. The French, trying to be amiable, adopted that term from the English, but spelling it the French way as crabes. In the early 1700's, the game crossed the Atlantic to the French colony of Acadia .
In 1755, the French lost Acadia to the English who promptly renamed it Nova Scotia and chucked out the French-speaking Acadians, who roamed around a bit and finally relocated in Louisiana, where they were called (as they still are) Cajuns, and developed a language called Louisiana French. They still played the good old dice game, but dropped the title of hasard and called the game simply crebs or creps, which was their spelling of the French crabes .
By 1843, the Cajun word came into American English as craps. People were apparently careful for a while not to omit the final s for fear of confusion with a slang term having a totally different meaning, but that's another story .
By 1885, such expressions as crapsgame, crapstable, and crapsshooter were found to be just too finicky so the final s was dropped where it served no useful purpose as in composites like craptable, crapshooter, crap game, etc., and retained where it refers only to the game (game of craps) or the losing roll (he craps out, he rolled craps) or where it would be too hard to pronounce (she crapped out, rather than she crapsed out) .
As long as craps existed the craps players tried to beat the house anyway they could. Hundreds of betting and progressive craps systems were created, the crooked dice were used and the dream to control the perfect dice on casino tables preoccupied the brain and imagination of the crapshooters.
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