Be clever, play cunning, and pickup craps the proper way!

Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is just about a century old. Modern craps come about from the old English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It is presumed that Sir William’s horsemen played Hazard through a blockade on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.

Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 18th century, when banished by the British, the French headed south and discovered refuge in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they brought their preferred game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it more mathematically fair. It is said that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which was acquired from the term for the non-winning throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi scows and all over the country. Most consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the current craps layout. He created the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he established the spots for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.