Be smart, play cunning, and pickup craps the proper way!
Dice and dice games goes all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately a century old. Current craps formed from the ancient English game called Hazard. No one knows for sure the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s presumed that Sir William’s knights bet on Hazard during a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when exiled by the English, the French moved south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their preferred 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 was acquired from the name of the losing throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi river boats and across the country. Many think the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In 1907, Winn designed the modern craps layout. He appended the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he designed the boxes for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.