Be clever, 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 only about one hundred years old. Modern craps formed from the ancient English game called Hazard. No one knows for certain the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It is believed that Sir William’s soldiers played Hazard through a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the castle’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when expelled by the British, the French headed south and discovered sanctuary in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which is derived from the term for the losing throw of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the nation. A great many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn designed the modern craps layout. He appended the Do not Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he created the boxes for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.