Be brilliant, play cunning, and pickup craps the right way!
Dice and dice games date back to the Crusades, but current craps is just about a century old. Modern craps evolved from the 12th Century English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the beginnings of the game, although Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It is presumed that Sir William’s knights enjoyed Hazard during a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when exiled by the English, the French moved down south and discovered safety in southern Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which was gotten from the term for the bad luck toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi river boats and throughout the nation. A great many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In 1907, Winn developed the current craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to not win. Later, he invented the spaces for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.