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

Dice and dice games date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately 100 years old. Current craps evolved from the ancient English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been invented by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s knights enjoyed Hazard through a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the castle’s name.

Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when displaced by the British, the French headed south and settled in southern Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns adjusted the title to craps, which is gotten from the name of the bad luck throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi scows and across the country. Most think the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In 1907, Winn assembled the current craps setup. He added the Do not Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to lose. At another time, he developed the spots for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.