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

Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is only about a century old. Modern craps developed from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the origin of the game, however Hazard is said to have been made up by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s knights gambled on Hazard during a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the citadel’s name.

Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when expelled by the English, the French headed down south and located refuge in southern Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which is gotten from the name of the losing throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi barges and throughout the nation. Most think the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he developed the boxes for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.