Be smart, play brilliant, and discover how to play craps the correct way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Crusades, but modern craps is only about one hundred years old. Modern craps formed from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the beginnings of the game, although Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It is presumed that Sir William’s soldiers enjoyed Hazard amid a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when exiled by the British, the French relocated south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is derived from the name of the losing toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi barges and throughout the country. A few acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn created the current craps layout. He added the Don’t Pass line so players can bet on the dice to lose. At another time, he established the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.