Be cunning, play smart, and pickup craps the proper 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 a century old. Current craps developed from the old English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the beginnings of the game, although Hazard is said to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s believed that Sir William’s paladins enjoyed Hazard amid a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 18th century, when displaced by the English, the French moved south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which is derived from the name of the non-winning throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi barges and all over the country. A good many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In 1907, Winn designed the current craps setup. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he designed the spots for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.