Be cunning, play brilliant, and pickup craps the proper way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is only about 100 years old. Current craps evolved from the 12th Century English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s knights wagered on Hazard amid a blockade on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when expelled by the British, the French headed south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it fair mathematically. It is believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which is gotten from the term for the losing toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi scows and all over the country. Many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In 1907, Winn designed the current craps layout. He added the Do not Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to not win. Afterwards, he created the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.