Be brilliant, play clever, and discover how to play craps the right way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is just about one hundred years old. Modern craps developed from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. No one knows for sure the birth of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s knights bet on Hazard amid a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 18th century, when driven away by the English, the French headed down south and discovered refuge in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it more mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is derived from the name of the non-winning throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi river boats and throughout the nation. A few consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In 1907, Winn built the current craps setup. He put in place the Do not Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. At another time, he developed the spaces for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.