[ English ]

Be cunning, play smart, and pickup craps the ideal way!

Dice and dice games goes all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is only about one hundred years old. Modern craps developed from the old Anglo game called Hazard. No one knows for certain the beginnings of the game, but Hazard is said to have been created by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It is theorized that Sir William’s soldiers gambled on Hazard through a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.

Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when expelled by the British, the French moved south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they left 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 changed the title to craps, which was derived from the term for the bad luck toss of two in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi scows and across the country. A good many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps layout. He created the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. Later, he established the boxes for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.