Be clever, play smart, and master craps the right way!

Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Crusades, but modern craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps come about from the 12th Century Anglo game called Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is said to have been created by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It is supposed that Sir William’s soldiers played Hazard during a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.

Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when expelled by the British, the French moved south and discovered safety in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was gotten from the term for the losing throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and across the country. A great many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the modern craps layout. He appended the Do not Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to not win. Later, he developed the spots for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.