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Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is only about one hundred years old. Modern craps developed from the ancient Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for sure the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It is presumed that Sir William’s knights wagered on Hazard amid a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when driven away by the English, the French headed south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it more mathematically fair. It is believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is derived from the term for the non-winning toss of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the country. Most consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In 1907, Winn assembled the current craps layout. He added the Don’t Pass line so players could wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he developed the boxes for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
