Be brilliant, play cunning, and learn how to play craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Crusades, but modern craps is only about a century old. Modern craps developed from the 12th Century Anglo game called Hazard. No one knows for sure the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s knights enjoyed Hazard through a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when displaced by the British, the French relocated down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it more mathematically fair. It is believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was gotten from the term for the losing throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi river boats and throughout the country. Most consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In 1907, Winn developed the current craps setup. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so players can bet on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he developed the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
