Be smart, play clever, and become versed in craps the right way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is just about 100 years old. Current craps come about from the ancient English game called Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the birth of the game, but Hazard is said to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It is supposed that Sir William’s paladins gambled on Hazard amid a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when displaced by the British, the French relocated down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s believed that the Cajuns altered the title to craps, which is derived from the term for the non-winning throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi scows and throughout the country. Most consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In 1907, Winn developed the modern craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so players could bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he established the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.