Be smart, play cunning, and master craps the right way!
Dice and dice games goes all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is only about one hundred years old. Modern craps formed from the old English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the birth of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It is theorized that Sir William’s soldiers wagered on Hazard during a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when expelled by the English, the French moved south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they brought their best-loved game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It is believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which was gotten from the name of the losing toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi scows and across the nation. Many think the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn created the current craps layout. He created the Do not Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he created the boxes for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.