History of Craps - casinocaptain.com

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Craps
History

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I first played "Hazard" (as the game was called then) in England during the 18th century then in France in the 19th century. In France, they played a version where the player rolled against the house, while the English version had a player vs. player type of game. The meaning of the name Craps actually deals with a losing bet. In the early days, a roller (shooter) automatically lost when rolling a 3 or 1/1. Rolling a 1/1 is now commonly referred to as "snake eyes" but back then, we called it "crabs." Somewhere along the way some drunken blaggard mispronounced this as "craps" which later became the popular name fer the game.

In 1813, a scallywag by the name of Bernard de Mandeville created a new and simplified version of craps and brought it to the Americas. Old Bernard's variation of the game spread wildly in the New World. His version of the game was exposed often to loaded (fixed) dice, since the only bets in it were field and come bets. In 1865, an improved version was published by John H. Winn (who was also a dice-maker.) In his version, players could choose whether to bet with er against the roller, which made loaded dice a non-issue. Winn's variation led to the craps version which is played today.