Craps Strategy

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

Be smart, play brilliant, and learn how to play craps the correct way!

Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately a century old. Current craps developed from the old English game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for certain the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It is believed that Sir William’s soldiers played Hazard through a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.

Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when banished by the English, the French relocated south and discovered safety in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they brought their best-loved game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns altered the title to craps, which was derived from the name of the non-winning throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi barges and throughout the nation. A great many think the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In 1907, Winn developed the current craps layout. He appended the Do not Pass line so players could wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he created the boxes for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.