Be clever, play cunning, and discover how to play craps the right 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 come about from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the birth of the game, however Hazard is said to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s horsemen bet on Hazard during a blockade on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the fortification’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when displaced by the English, the French headed down south and discovered safety 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 modernized the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which is gotten from the term for the non-winning toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi barges and throughout the country. Most acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn designed the modern craps setup. He put in place the Do not Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he established the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
