Be smart, play smart, and pickup craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is just about 100 years old. Modern craps formed from the 12th Century Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for sure the beginnings of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been created by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s horsemen bet on Hazard through a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the citadel’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when exiled by the English, the French relocated down south and found sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it fair mathematically. It is said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which was acquired from the name of the bad luck toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and across the nation. A few acknowledge the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In 1907, Winn designed the current craps setup. He created the Do not Pass line so players could wager on the dice to lose. At another time, he developed the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
