Craps History
For as long as there has been dice, there have been craps games. And since the origin of dice dates back to prehistoric times, the history is very long and storied, indeed! There is talk of entire fortunes being lost in ancient epic stories still told today in India. Emperor Nero was one of the earliest cheaters at dice (and got away with it because he was the Emperor, after all!).
The first known dice were not the clear, dotted dice that we are used to seeing today. Instead, they were actually made of animal bones and sticks. Prehistoric shamans threw these on the ground and predicted the future based on their placement. Since then, dice have evolved on a huge scale. Since their humble bones and sticks beginnings, they have been made of wood, stones, animal teeth and horns, amongst other things. The earliest die in the shape of a cube was found around 600 B.C. in Egypt. Eventually, they graduated to the hard, clear cellulose that we are used to seeing in modern casinos.
That is the history of dice, but not craps. Though the history of the earliest dice games does not go back to prehistoric times, it is still a few thousand years old. When it comes to craps, the history starts with an old English game called "hazard". Though there is speculation that the game of hazard was invented well before the crusades, the earliest evidence of actual play was from the knights who served in the crusades. But here is where some historians disagree. Some will say that the French invented the game as "hasard", and the English gave it their own spelling and claimed it. In the end, it matters not who invented it, as the modern game as we know it was invented by neither country, as you will soon see.
The earliest evidence in the United States was in early-1800s New Orleans, where it was brought over by the French. The settlers in the area started calling it "craps", which is a Creole twist on the French word "crabs", which was the slang at the time for rolling a pair of ones. This is how the game acquired its modern name.
The Granddaddy of the modern game was a man by the name of Bernard de Mandeville, an American who changed the rules in 1813. He simplified the betting system from the old English/French system. Soon, riverboats and underground casinos all along the Mississippi and the Gulf Coast were playing his new version. But like most simple games, they were very easy to cheat at. The new craps games were prone to people who used fixed dice to achieve their desired result. A dice maker by the name of John H. Winn saw this problem and gave the game a new twist in order to prevent it.
Before Winn, the game of craps only allowed you to bet with the person rolling the dice, which is why so many cheated. They could not only earn their own money, but a cut of others betting with them. Winn made it so that you could also bet with the house, or against the roller. Soon, there were less fixed dice and less cheating, although cheating is still attempted today, as one would expect in any game involving money.
Though rules and odds have changed throughout the years, there are still basics to the game. No matter if you play casino, online or even underground games of craps, there are core rules that have not changed a whole lot since Winn.