Be smart, play smart, and master craps the proper 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 a century old. Modern craps evolved from the old Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It is theorized that Sir William’s soldiers bet on Hazard through a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the citadel’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 18th century, when exiled by the English, the French moved down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which is derived from the term for the non-winning toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi river boats and throughout the country. A great many acknowledge the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the current craps layout. He added the Do not Pass line so players could wager on the dice to lose. Later, he developed the spaces for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.