Be brilliant, play cunning, and discover how to play craps the right way!
Dice and dice games date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is only about one hundred years old. Current craps evolved from the 12th Century English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the birth of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It is supposed that Sir William’s soldiers wagered on Hazard during a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was gotten from the castle’s name.
Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when driven away by the English, the French moved down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was derived from the term for the losing throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi scows and across the nation. Most acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In 1907, Winn assembled the current craps layout. He appended the Don’t Pass line so players could bet on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he created the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
