Be cunning, play smart, and master craps the correct 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 come about from the ancient Anglo game called Hazard. No one knows for sure the birth of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s believed that Sir William’s horsemen enjoyed Hazard during a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when expelled by the British, the French relocated down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which is derived 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 scows and throughout the country. A few consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps setup. He created the Don’t Pass line so players could wager on the dice to not win. Afterwards, he invented the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
