Be smart, play smart, and master craps the correct way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is approximately a century old. Current craps developed from the 12th Century Anglo game called Hazard. No one knows for certain the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is said to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s paladins played Hazard amid a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when expelled by the British, the French moved down south and found safety in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became known as Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which is gotten from the term for the bad luck throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the country. Most consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the current craps setup. He added the Do not Pass line so players could bet on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he developed the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
