Be clever, play smart, and become versed in craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is only about one hundred years old. Current craps come about from the old English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the origin of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It is supposed that Sir William’s horsemen wagered on Hazard through a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when displaced by the British, the French moved down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was gotten from the term for the losing throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi river boats and throughout the country. A few consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the current craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so players could wager on the dice to lose. Later, he designed the spaces for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
