Be brilliant, play clever, and become versed in craps the correct way!
Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is just about 100 years old. Modern craps come about from the old English game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, however Hazard is said to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the twelfth century. It is presumed that Sir William’s horsemen gambled on Hazard during a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortification’s name.
Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when exiled by the British, the French headed down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns altered the title to craps, which was acquired from the term for the non-winning toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi barges and across the country. A few consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In 1907, Winn created the modern craps setup. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so players can wager on the dice to not win. At another time, he established the spaces for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.