What is the History of Craps?

Dice have been in use for over two thousand years.  There is some support to the idea that a type of craps was played as far back as during the Roman Empire.  Roman soldiers used the bones of pigs and sheep, shaping the bones into cubes, and threw them in some sort of dice game to pass the time when in camp.  The pig and sheep bones used in the first created dice are thought to be the basis of the expression “roll the bones”.

The original use of dice is thought to have been as a fortune telling aid to aid in decision making.  Over time the original symbols used for predicting the future have been changed to the symbols we see on dice today, as dice were no longer made use of to predict the future.

With something this old the record of how it changed is muddy and various theories have been proposed over time.  One theory has the origin of the modern game of craps as originating in a contest played by Arabs known as Azzahr since before the time of the Middle Ages.  Later the game showed up in France where it was referred to as Hasard, sometime about 1500 the game made it across the English Channel and acquired the English spelling Hazard.  Formal regulations for Hazard had been made by the early 1700’s.

French settlers delivered the game across the Atlantic to New France (Quebec and some of Nova Scotia).  Following the British defeat of the French in New France scores of of the initial French settlers from Nova Scotia found themselves in Louisiana were they established themselves.  They continued to play Hasard but over time started to name the dice game Crebs or Creps, the Cajun way of spelling the French Crabes (The lowest achievable denomination in the game was referred to as Crabes by the French and Crabs by the English).  By 1843 the Cajun name had come into American English as Craps.

As the frontier migrated west the game of Craps moved with it, and is now played all over America as well as the rest of the planet.  The two usual types of craps enjoyed today are “Bank Craps” and “Street Craps”; however a new type of internet craps “Online Craps” growing in popularity.  Conservative figures of 30 million are quoted when discussing the quantity of U.S. citizens who play dice games annually.