Be cunning, play brilliant, and become versed in craps the right way!
Dice and dice games goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is only about one hundred years old. Current craps evolved from the old English game called Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the origin of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been made up by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It is supposed that Sir William’s paladins gambled on Hazard amid a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when expelled by the English, the French moved down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they at a later time became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which is gotten from the term for the non-winning toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the nation. Most consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In 1907, Winn designed the modern craps setup. He appended the Do not Pass line so players could wager on the dice to lose. At another time, he invented the spaces for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.