Editing Craps (section)

==History==
{{More citations needed|section|date=April 2018}}
[[File:Truants, "Red St. Clair," and chum shooting craps in front of Murphy's Branch at 11-00 A.M. a school day. Red is boss... - NARA - 523289.jpg|thumb|Craps being played by children in a street in [[St Louis, Missouri]], circa 1912]]
Craps developed in the United States from a simplification of the western European game of [[Hazard (game)|Hazard]], also spelled Hazzard<ref name=Hoyle90/> or Hasard.<ref name=Huyn/> The origins of Hazard are obscure and may date to the [[Crusades]];<ref name=Scarne74>{{cite book |title=Scarne on Dice |first=John |last=Scarne |date=1974 |url=https://archive.org/details/scarneondice0000scar/mode/2up |publisher=Stackpole Books |location=Harrisburg, Pennsylvania |isbn=0-8117-1516-7 |url-access=registration |author-link=John Scarne}}</ref>{{rp|32–33}} a detailed description of Hazard was provided by [[Edmond Hoyle]] in ''Hoyle's Games, Improved'' (1790).<ref name=Hoyle90/> At approximately the same time (1788), "Krabs" was documented as a French variation on Hazard.<ref name=Huyn>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2_9bAAAAQAAJ |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2_9bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA3 |chapter=Theorie des jeux de Hasard |title=La theorie des jeux de hazard, ou, Analyse du krabs, du passe-dix, de la Roulette, du Trente & Quarante, du Pharaon, du Biribi & du Lotto |last1=Huyn |first1=P. N. |year=1788}}</ref><ref name=Asbury38/>{{rp|43–44}}

In aristocratic London, crabs was the epithet for the sum combinations of two and three for two rolled dice,<ref name=Hoyle90>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_hoyles-games-improved-_hoyle-edmond_1790/ |title=Hoyle's Games Improved |first1=Edmond |last1=Hoyle |author1-link=Edmond Hoyle |first2=Charles |last2=Jones |date=1790 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_hoyles-games-improved-_hoyle-edmond_1790/page/236/mode/2up |chapter=The GAME of HAZARD |pages=237–240}}</ref>{{rp|238}} which in Hazard are instant-losing numbers for the first dice roll, regardless of the shooter's selected main number.<ref name=Asbury38/>{{rp|42}} The name craps is derived from the corruption of this term crabs (or Krabs) to creps and then craps.<ref name=Asbury38>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/suckersprogress0000herb/ |title=Sucker's Progress |first=Herbert |last=Asbury |author-link=Herbert Asbury |date=1938 |publisher=Dodd, Mead & Company |location=New York |isbn=978-0-87585-051-1 |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{rp|42–44}}

According to some accounts, Hazard was brought from [[London]] to [[New Orleans]] in approximately 1805 by the returning [[Bernard de Marigny|Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville]], the young gambler and scion of a family of wealthy landowners in [[Louisiana (New France)|colonial Louisiana]].<ref name=Bridges01>{{cite book |last=Bridges |first=Tyler |title=Bad Bet on the Bayou |publisher=Farrar, Straus & Giroux |date=2001 |isbn=0-374-52854-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/badbetonbayouris0000brid}}</ref>{{rp|7–8}} Hazard allows the dice shooter to choose any number from five to nine as their "main" number;<ref name=Cotton74>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_the-compleat-gamester-_cotton-charles_1674/ |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_the-compleat-gamester-_cotton-charles_1674/page/168/mode/2up |title=The Compleat Gamester |chapter=XXX. Of HAZZARD |first=Charles |last=Cotton |author-link=Charles Cotton |date=1674 |pages=168–173}}</ref>{{rp|168}} in a pamphlet published in 1933,<ref>{{cite book |title=The Palingenesis of Craps |first=Edward Larocque |last=Tinker |date=1933 |publisher=Press of the Woolly Whale}}</ref> Edward Tinker claimed that Marigny simplified the game by making the main always seven,<ref name=Bridges01/> which is the mathematically optimal choice, i.e., the choice with the lowest disadvantage for the shooter.<ref name=Cotton74/>{{rp|170}} However, more recent research indicates that Marigny played an unmodified version of Hazard, which had been played in America since at least the 1600s.<ref name=Scarne74/>{{rp|34–35}} Instead, [[John Scarne]] credits anonymous Black American inventors with simplifying and streamlining Hazard, increasing the pace of the game and adding a variety of wagers.<ref name=Scarne74/>{{rp|39}}

Regardless of who deserves credit for simplifying Hazard, the game initially was called Pass from the French word ''pas'' (meaning "pace" or "step"), and was popularized by the underclass starting in the early 19th century.<ref name=Botermans>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bookofgamesstrat0000bote_r1h7 |last=Botermans |first=Jack |translator-last=Fankbonner |translator-first=Edgar Loy |date=2008 |title=The Book of Games: Strategy, Tactics & History |location=New York |publisher=Sterling |isbn=978-1-4027-4221-7 |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{rp|541–542}} Field hands taught their friends and deckhands, who carried the new game up the Mississippi River and its tributaries, although the game was never popular amongst the riverboat gamblers.<ref name=Asbury38/>{{rp|205}} Marigny gave the name Rue de Craps to a street in his new subdivision in New Orleans; in that city, craps experienced a resurgence of popularity in the late 1830s,<ref name=Asbury38/>{{rp|45–47}} but was not played in gaming houses until the 1890s.<ref name=Scarne74/>{{rp|40}} Budd Theobald credits the cultural exchange between attendants and railroad passengers on [[Pullman car]]s for popularizing the game,<ref name=Theobald62>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/howtoshootcraps00theo/ |title=How to Shoot Craps |first=Budd |last=Theobald |date=1962 |publisher=C.T. Harris |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{rp|16}} which eventually spread throughout America by the 1910s,<ref name=Asbury38/>{{rp|45–47}} when it was described as "the gambling game of [the country]" in ''Foster's Complete Hoyle'' (1914).<ref name=Foster14>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/fosterscompleteh01fost/ |title=Foster's Complete Hoyle |first=Robert F. |last=Foster |author-link=Robert Frederick Foster |date=October 1914 |publisher=Frederick A. Stokes Company |location=New York}}</ref>{{rp|614–615}}

[[File:Craps diagram (pre-Winn).svg|thumb|left|Older bank crap table layout with supplemental wagers, as typical before Winn introduced "Don't Pass"]]
The craps numbers of 2, 3, and 12 are similarly derived from Hazard. If the main is seven, then the two-dice sum of twelve is added to the crabs as a losing number on the first dice roll.  This condition is retained in the simplified game called Pass. All three losing numbers (2, 3, and 12) on the first roll of Pass are jointly called the craps numbers.<ref name=Foster14/>{{rp|614}} The central game Pass gradually has been supplemented over the decades by many companion games and wagers which can be played simultaneously with Pass; these are now collectively known as craps.

Early versions of bank craps played in casinos made money either by charging a commission to shooters or offering short odds on the various wagers, primarily on the "Pass line" bet for the shooter to win against the house. In approximately 1907, a dicemaker named John H. Winn in [[Philadelphia]] introduced a layout which featured a space to wager on "Don't Pass" (i.e., for the shooter to lose) in addition to "Pass".<ref name=Scarne74/>{{rp|41}} Virtually all modern casinos use his innovation, which incentivizes casinos to use fair dice.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fenich |first1=George |title=A Chronology of (Legal) Gaming in the U.S. Gaming |journal=Gaming Research & Review Journal |date=1996 |volume=3 |issue=2 |page=69 |access-date=28 March 2020 |url=https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/grrj/vol3/iss2/6/}}</ref> As introduced by Winn, "Don't Pass" bets were taken with a 5 percent commission to ensure the house retained an edge in running the game; this was replaced by the Bar-3 push for "Don't Pass", and later by the Bar-12 (or Bar-2) push.<ref name=Fundamentals04>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/fundamentalsofcr0000malm/ |title=Fundamentals of Craps |first1=Mason |last1=Malmuth |first2=Lynne |last2=Loomis |date=2004 |publisher=Two Plus Two Publishing |location=Henderson, Nevada |isbn=1-880685-30-2 |url-access=registration |pages=3–4}}</ref>

[[File:Photograph of a Tank Destroyer Crew Playing Craps While Awaiting Removal of a Road Block - NARA - 6927819.jpg|thumb|Soldiers playing craps (1945)]]
Craps exploded in popularity during [[World War II]],<ref name=Fundamentals04/> which brought most young American men of every social class into the military. The street version of craps was popular among service members who often played it using a blanket as a shooting surface. Their military memories led to craps becoming the dominant casino game in postwar Las Vegas and the Caribbean.

After 1960, a few casinos in Europe, Australia, and Macau began offering craps, and, after 2004, online casinos extended the game's spread globally.