Be smart, play cunning, and become versed in craps the proper way!

Dice and dice games date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is only about 100 years old. Modern craps formed from the old English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the beginnings of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s knights enjoyed Hazard through a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the fortification’s name.

Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when displaced by the English, the French relocated south and found sanctuary in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which is acquired from the name of the non-winning toss of two in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi scows and throughout the country. A few think the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In 1907, Winn developed the modern craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can wager on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he created the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.