Be clever, play smart, and pickup craps the correct way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is only about 100 years old. Current craps come about from the ancient English game called Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s paladins played Hazard amid a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was gotten from the castle’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when displaced by the British, the French headed down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they brought their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which is derived from the name of the bad luck throw of two in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the nation. A few acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the current craps layout. He created the Don’t Pass line so players can wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he created the spaces for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.