Be cunning, play smart, and pickup craps the proper way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps developed from the old English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s presumed that Sir William’s horsemen enjoyed Hazard amid a blockade on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when displaced by the English, the French relocated down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which is derived from the term for the losing throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and across the nation. Many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the current craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to lose. At another time, he established the boxes for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.