Be brilliant, play smart, and master craps the correct way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is just about a century old. Current craps formed from the ancient English game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the beginnings of the game, although Hazard is said to have been created by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s presumed that Sir William’s paladins gambled on Hazard during a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the castle’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when banished by the British, the French headed down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which was derived from the name of the bad luck throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi river boats and across the nation. A few consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the current craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to not win. Later, he created the spaces for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
