Be smart, play clever, and learn how to play craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately a century old. Current craps come about from the 12th Century Anglo game called Hazard. No one knows for certain the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been created by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s knights played Hazard during a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when banished by the British, the French headed down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It is believed that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was acquired from the term for the non-winning throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi scows and throughout the country. Most think the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn designed the current craps setup. He put in place the Do not Pass line so gamblers 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.