The game known as Craps is among the most confusing and exciting forms of casino gambling. If you happen to hear an uproar coming from any of the tables, you can almost be certain that the center of attention is two tumbling dice. The pace is fast. The potential winnings are huge. And the game itself is paradoxically simple and complex.
A Long History
Games played with dice are among the oldest forms of gambling. According to Greek mythology, the Olympian gods threw dice to determine how to split up the Universe. That’s how Zeus, the big winner, got his place in the heavens, Poseidon was given control over the seas, and the loser, Hades, ended up with the underworld as his domain.
Some 10,000 years ago, our human ancestors used four-sided sheep hucklebones called astragali for recreational purposes—“throwing bones.” By 3000 B.C., players began filing the bones into cubes so that they would roll more smoothly. Eventually, more consistent materials, such as ivory, jade and wood, were used to make the cubes, and six-sided dice were born.
The addition of pips (dots or spots) to mark their faces came into vogue around 1300 B.C. By 500 B.C., a board game using dice became popular in India— Parcheesi—and two hundred years later, another enduring dice-based board game evolved to become Backgammon.
By comparison, the dice game we know today as Craps is a relatively modern invention. It has been said that William of Tyre and soldiers of the Crusades created a game called “Hazard” to pass the time. It is played with two dice, and the value of a roll is the total number of pips showing on the sides facing up. In Hazard, rolls totaling two or three are called “crabs,” and a player who roles them “crabs out.”
From England via France, this game passed on to America, where Bernard de Mandeville was said to have perfected it with “field” and “come” bets in New Orleans in 1813. He named the new form of the game “Craps,” which is likely a corruption of either “crabs” or the French word for a pair of ones.
Craps can be played either against other players or against a banker known as “the house.” In the former version, two or more players form a circle, place wagers in the middle or “center,” and bet against themselves. Discussion here, however, will be focused on the latter version, which is mostly common played online as well as at specially designed tables in land-based casinos.
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