Be cunning, play cunning, and become versed in craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately one hundred years old. Modern craps evolved from the ancient English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the birth of the game, however Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s soldiers wagered on Hazard through a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when displaced by the British, the French headed down south and found sanctuary in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their best-loved game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which is derived from the name of the non-winning toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi scows and across the nation. Many acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the modern craps setup. He created the Do not Pass line so players could bet on the dice to lose. Later, he created the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
