Be clever, play smart, and pickup craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes back to the Crusades, but current craps is just about a century old. Modern craps evolved from the ancient English game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It is believed that Sir William’s soldiers played Hazard through a blockade on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the castle’s name.
Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when exiled by the British, the French relocated down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is derived from the name of the bad luck toss of two in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the country. A few acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn designed the current craps layout. He appended the Do not Pass line so gamblers can wager on the dice to not win. At another time, he established the spots for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.