Be cunning, play brilliant, and become versed in craps the correct way!

Dice and dice games date back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately a century old. Current craps developed from the ancient English game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It’s believed that Sir William’s knights enjoyed Hazard through a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.

Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when driven away by the British, the French relocated south and discovered safety in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which is acquired from the term for the bad luck throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi barges and all over the nation. A few think the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In 1907, Winn developed the current craps setup. He created the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. Later, he established the spaces for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.