Be smart, play clever, and discover how to play craps the proper way!

Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Crusades, but modern craps is just about a century old. Current craps evolved from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the birth of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It is theorized that Sir William’s knights bet on Hazard during a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.

Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when exiled by the English, the French moved south and settled in southern Louisiana where they after a while became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it fair mathematically. It is said that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which is derived from the term for the non-winning toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi river boats and all over the nation. A great many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the modern craps layout. He put in place the Do not Pass line so gamblers can wager on the dice to lose. At another time, he established the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.