Be clever, play clever, and become versed in craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is just about 100 years old. Current craps formed from the old English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the beginnings of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s paladins played Hazard during a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when displaced by the British, the French moved down south and found refuge in southern Louisiana where they at a later time became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they brought their best-loved game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was derived from the name of the non-winning toss of two in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi scows and all over the country. Most consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn created the modern craps setup. He created the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can wager on the dice to not win. Later, he designed the spots for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
