Be brilliant, play cunning, and learn how to play craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately one hundred years old. Current craps come about from the 12th Century Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for certain the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the twelfth century. It is theorized that Sir William’s knights bet on Hazard through a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the fortification’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when exiled by the English, the French moved south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they brought their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which is gotten from the name of the bad luck throw of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the nation. Many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In 1907, Winn built the current craps layout. He added the Do not Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he created the spaces for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.