Be cunning, play clever, and master craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately a century old. Current craps evolved from the ancient Anglo game called Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s horsemen played Hazard through a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was gotten from the fortress’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when driven away by the British, the French moved down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their preferred game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it fair mathematically. It is said that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was derived from the term for the non-winning throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi river boats and across the country. Many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In 1907, Winn created the modern craps layout. He added the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can wager on the dice to not win. At another time, he invented the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
