Be cunning, play clever, and become versed in craps the proper way!
Dice and dice games goes 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 called Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s knights played Hazard through a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when expelled by the English, the French moved south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns altered the title to craps, which is acquired from the name of the non-winning toss of two in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi barges and throughout the country. Many think the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn designed the current craps setup. He added the Do not Pass line so players could bet on the dice to not win. Later, he established the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.