Be smart, play cunning, and pickup craps the right way!
Dice and dice games goes all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately 100 years old. Modern craps evolved from the ancient English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the birth of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been created by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It’s believed that Sir William’s knights wagered on Hazard during a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when banished by the British, the French moved south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which is gotten from the name of the losing toss of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi river boats and throughout the country. A few acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the current craps layout. He added the Do not Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he designed the spaces for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.