Be cunning, play clever, and discover how to play craps the ideal way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is just about one hundred years old. Modern craps developed from the old English game called Hazard. No one knows for sure the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It is theorized that Sir William’s horsemen gambled on Hazard through a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when driven away by the British, the French moved down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it mathematically fair. It is believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is derived from the term for the losing throw of two in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and across the nation. Most consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the current craps setup. He created the Do not Pass line so players can wager on the dice to lose. Later, he designed the spots for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.