"Craps" Comes from "Crabs"
Posted: Sat Sep 16, 2023 10:40 pm
Why is the popular North American casino dice game Craps called Craps? It's a simple equation: language + time = bonkers. Historians think it all started with an old British dice game called Hazard (such a better name). In Hazard, rolling "snake eyes" was called rolling "crabs" (for some reason). French settlers in New Orleans in the mid-1700s kept Hazard alive, but over time, the combination of French and English-speaking players and changes to the game's rules slowly turned "crabs" into "craps" (for some reason) and a whole new game was born, eventually leaving Hazard nothing but a distant memory. Viva le Craps!