The game of craps is not a new game. The roots of the game can be traced back to ancient times when people used various items as a form of dice including rocks, wood or whatever they could find that would work, even ivory and porcelain. The early dice were not finely calibrated and balanced because casinos didn’t have the equipment to do so.
Today’s dice are balanced and are made out of cellulose with six sides. Each side has a certain number of dots or some markings representing the numbers one through six. It is believed that a game called Hazard came to America or Canada soon after the Mayflower. The game was very popular, especially in New Orleans in the 1800s where it was played bingo on the Mississippi riverboats.
There were a lot of shysters at this time that played the game with loaded or unbalanced dice. If the dice are unbalanced, this means they will land with the heavier side face down and the number of the opposite side will come up more often. This practice prevailed until 1931 when John Winn restructured the and basically eliminated the advantage of using loaded dice. He added Right, Wrong and Don’t Pass to the game.
The game then became accepted as a legitimate casino game. The game became a favorite of U.S. servicemen worldwide which is how it spread around the world. Today, both the street version and the casino version are popular with gamblers. |
