Now applied to the entire collection of games, the name craps derives from an underclass Louisiana mispronunciation of the word crabs, which in aristocratic London had been the epithet for the numbers two and three. The central game, called pass from the French word pas (meaning 'pace' or 'step'), has been gradually supplemented over the decades by many companion games which can be played simultaneously with pass. Celebrating the popular success of his novelty, de Marigny gave the name Rue de Craps to a street in his new subdivision in New Orleans. Field hands taught their friends and deckhands, who carried the new game up the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Both hazard and its simpler derivative were unfamiliar to and rejected by Americans of his social class, leading de Marigny to introduce his novelty to the local underclass. Although in hazard the dice shooter may choose any number from five to nine to be his main number, de Marigny simplified the game such that the main number is always seven, which is the mathematically optimal choice (choice with the lowest disadvantage for the shooter).

Hazard was brought from London to New Orleans in approximately 1805 by the returning Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville, the young gambler and scion of a family of wealthy landowners in colonial Louisiana. The origins of hazard are obscure and may date to the Crusades. Ĭraps developed in the United States from a simplification of the western European game of hazard. In 1788, 'Krabs' (later spelled crabs) was an English variation on the dice game hazard (also spelled hasard).

JSTOR ( April 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Ĭraps game at a military camp in 1918 Craps being played by children in a street in St Louis, Missouri, circa 1912.

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