Be cunning, play cunning, and master craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is only about a century old. Current craps come about from the 12th Century English game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the birth of the game, although Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s soldiers wagered on Hazard through a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when driven away by the English, the French relocated south and located sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they at a later time became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was acquired from the name of the non-winning toss of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi river boats and across the country. A few consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In 1907, Winn created the modern craps setup. He added the Do not Pass line so players could wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he designed the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.