Be cunning, play clever, and master craps the correct way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately 100 years old. Modern craps formed from the 12th Century Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been created by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s presumed that Sir William’s paladins enjoyed Hazard amid a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when exiled by the English, the French headed south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it fair mathematically. It is said that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which was gotten from the term for the non-winning toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi barges and throughout the nation. Most acknowledge the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps layout. He put in place the Don’t 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.