Be smart, play brilliant, and master craps the correct way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is approximately one hundred years old. Current craps come about from the 12th Century English game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for sure the origin of the game, although Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s horsemen gambled on Hazard amid a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when displaced by the English, the French moved south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which is derived from the name of the losing throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi barges and across the country. Most acknowledge the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn created the current craps setup. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so players can bet on the dice to not win. At another time, he developed the spots for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.