Be brilliant, play smart, and pickup craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately one hundred years old. Modern craps developed from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. No one knows for certain the origin of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It is believed that Sir William’s paladins gambled on Hazard through a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.
Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 18th century, when banished by the British, the French relocated south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was derived from the term for the bad luck toss of two in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the country. A few acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn created the modern craps setup. He created the Do not Pass line so players could bet on the dice to not win. At another time, he developed the spaces for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.