Be cunning, play smart, and pickup craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps evolved from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the birth of the game, although Hazard is said to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s knights gambled on Hazard through a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when exiled by the British, the French relocated south and discovered refuge in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which is derived from the term for the non-winning throw of two in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi barges and all over the nation. Many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In 1907, Winn built the modern craps layout. He added the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. At another time, he designed the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.