Be clever, play cunning, and pickup craps the proper way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is only about a century old. Modern craps formed from the 12th Century English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been created by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s believed that Sir William’s knights enjoyed Hazard amid a blockade on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when exiled by the English, the French headed south and settled in the south of 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 simplified the game and made it fair mathematically. It is believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was derived from the term for the non-winning throw of two in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and across the country. A few acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn designed the current craps setup. He created the Don’t Pass line so players can wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he created the boxes for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.