Be cunning, play brilliant, and pickup craps the proper way!
Dice and dice games goes back to the Crusades, but modern craps is only about a century old. Current craps formed from the old Anglo game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It is presumed that Sir William’s knights played Hazard during a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 18th century, when exiled by the British, the French headed down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which was derived from the term for the losing throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi scows and across the country. Many acknowledge the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In 1907, Winn developed the modern craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. Later, he established the spots for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
