Be cunning, play clever, and discover how to play craps the correct way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is just about 100 years old. Modern craps developed from the old English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s soldiers enjoyed Hazard during a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 18th century, when expelled by the English, the French relocated south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their best-loved game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which was derived from the name of the losing throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the country. A good many acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the current craps layout. He added the Do not Pass line so players could wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he designed the spots for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.