Be smart, play clever, and become versed in craps the correct way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is just about 100 years old. Modern craps evolved from the old Anglo game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the beginnings of the game, although Hazard is said to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It is supposed that Sir William’s soldiers played Hazard amid a blockade on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the citadel’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when exiled by the British, the French moved down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is derived from the term for the bad luck toss of two in the game of Hazard, recognized 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 father of current craps. In 1907, Winn developed the current craps setup. He added the Don’t Pass line so players can wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he developed the spaces for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.