Be clever, play clever, and become versed in craps the right way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is just about a century old. Modern craps developed from the old English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the birth of the game, however Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s believed that Sir William’s horsemen enjoyed Hazard through a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when driven away by the British, the French headed 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 mathematically fair. It is believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was gotten from the term for the bad luck throw of two in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and across the country. A good many think the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In 1907, Winn developed the current craps setup. He created the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he established the boxes for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.