Be smart, play smart, and master craps the ideal way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is just about one hundred years old. Current craps come about from the 12th Century English game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It’s believed that Sir William’s paladins played Hazard amid a blockade on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the castle’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when driven away by the English, the French relocated south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which is derived from the term for the losing toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi barges and all over the country. Many think the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In 1907, Winn developed the current craps setup. He appended the Do not Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to not win. Later, he invented the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
