Be cunning, play brilliant, and master craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Crusades, but modern craps is just about a century old. Current craps come about from the 12th Century Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been created by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It’s believed that Sir William’s knights enjoyed Hazard through a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when driven away by the British, the French moved down south and found refuge in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which is derived from the name of the non-winning toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the country. A few acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In 1907, Winn designed the modern craps setup. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so players can wager on the dice to lose. Later, he designed the spots for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
