Craps Game

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Craps Game

Craps is one of the table games that is loved by almost every one who ever played it. The same as other table games, craps game history is very interesting to discover. Also, craps rules, unlike other table games, are easier to comprehend. So below is some background info about the most interesting of table games – craps.

Craps Game Summary

To play craps you need to have two dice. They should be thrown by a 'craps shooter' on a long table with boards from one to two feet high surrounding the table. Basically, players should establish a "point" number and then get that number again before rolling a 7 (craps). At first site, Craps game looks like a really difficult one, but don't be misled – it is really easy to play!

Craps history

Richard Epstein believed that craps originated from an earlier game known as Hazard, that was invented in the Middle Ages and has the rules that were written by Montmort early in the 1700s. To find out the origin of the game's name Craps is harder, but it could be rooted from the English crabs, or from the French Crapeaud (for toad). Another popular theory states that a form of craps has existed already at the time of the Holy Roman Empire. Soldiers in the Roman Legions used pig knuckles to make a primitive cubes and throw them onto their inverted shields to entertain themselves, that is where the term "to roll the bones" came from.

"Street Craps" and "Bank Craps" are two kinds of craps that are most common today. Recently, the Internet version - Online Craps - has also found a lot of admirers.

Another theory by Mark Pilarski states that Craps was invented before the Middle Ages by the Arabs, who used little numbered cubes to play the game they called azzahr (meaning "the die"). Then the game was brought to France, where it found a new name - hasard, then - to England some time before 1500 AD where the spelling of the word was changed according to English rules - hazard. The roll of lowest value in that game was called crabs (sounds closely to the “craps”). The French borrowed the term back transforming it to crabes. In the early 1700's, the game came to the French colony of Acadia.

In 1755, the French lost Acadia to the English who gave it a new name - Nova Scotia and casted out the French-speaking Acadians, who moved to Louisiana to become Cajuns, and developed a language called Louisiana French. The good old dice game is still popular among them, but the title was changed to simply crebs or creps according to their spelling rules.

By 1843, American English borrowed the term as Craps. For some time, people pronounced the final s to avoid the 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 considered to be just too mincing, so the final s in the word craps 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).

Craps Game

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