Be clever, play smart, and pickup craps the right way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is just about one hundred years old. Modern craps evolved from the old Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for certain the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been created by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s believed that Sir William’s knights enjoyed Hazard during a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the citadel’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when driven away by the British, the French headed south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they brought their favorite game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was gotten from the name of the non-winning toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi river boats and across the country. Most consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the current craps layout. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so players can wager on the dice to lose. Later, he designed the boxes for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
