Throwing the Dice in Casino Craps
Craps, the kingpin casino lure. The action in this game is fast, lightning fast. Bets of all sorts can be made on every roll, no waiting. It is the kind of sport in which a gambler can turn up his sleeves and literally jump in. Unlike other casino amusements, where the croupier does all the work, the crap shooter is in the action, spieling his monologue, basking in the attention of a dozen or so other dice enthusiasts who are caught up in the drama with him.
Craps is popular for another reason, too. If played properly, it is a relatively fair game, fair enough to give the player, the good player, that is, a chance to win.
Although a latecomer to the gambler's table, craps boasts an ancient and eminent past. Keeping definitions broad, it can be said that a certain cousin of craps, called ten, was popular as far back as Roman times. (It is believed that ten was the game Roman soldiers played at the foot of the cross when dicing for the robe of Christ.) Just exactly how ten later became the English game of hazard is an open question. But the subsequent mechanics of hazard's evolution into craps is easy to trace, for the similarity between the two games is more than evident.
Observe: the rules for hazard play are simple, simpler by far than craps. Players gather around a circular table presided over by a croupier. The gambler places his bet, allows others to risk an equal amount, and tosses the dice. As he tosses he "calls a main," any number between 5 and 9 inclusive. If he throws that number he "nicks" and wins. If he throws "crabs," a 2 or 3, he loses. And if neither appears the number that does show up becomes his "chance." The object then is to throw his chance before his main. Although rarely played today, hazard was at one time the most popular dice game in the world.
Most authorities believe that hazard came to America with the Pilgrims, moved slowly southward, and was finally transformed into craps along the Mississippi by African dock workers. That hazard came to America through the French is a theory interesting for its philological lore if not for its factualness. Those propounding this notion believe that around 1800 the game was introduced by French sharpshooters in New Orleans, where after rapidly evolving into modern craps it was dubbed crapaud, or "frogeater," by southern locals, who had the habit of referring to all Frenchmen with this quaint sobriquet. Through innumerable slips of the southern tongue, crapaud began to sound like crapoo, then crapa, and finally just plain craps, a nice theory, but is ruined by the fact that gamblers were playing hazard in America some fifty years before the French settled in Louisiana. And anyway, we know exactly where the word "craps" came from. It is a mispronunciation of "crabs," which in hazard indicates a throw of 2 or 3.
It might be said that craps is really two games in one, a schizophrenic package in which one half of the action has little to do with the other. By this we mean that craps, being a game of skill only so far as the betting goes, has two completely different kinds of wagers: those that can and often do win and those that might but usually do not win. The first kind of wager is made by smart bettors, the second kind by dumb bettors. Good players, quite simply, play only "line" and "come" bets, plus the odds. That's it. That's all. Nothing else. On the other hand, dumb bettors waste their money on such flings as the Field, Big 6 and 8, proposition bets, and all the rest. These belong to the dumb game, to the people who are looking for thrills and don't care how they spend their money, those who basically do not care whether they win or lose.