Be smart, play brilliant, and pickup craps the right way!

Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is only about 100 years old. Current craps come about from the 12th Century English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the beginnings of the game, however Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the 12th century. It’s presumed that Sir William’s paladins wagered on Hazard through a blockade on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.

Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when displaced by the British, the French relocated down south and settled in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their best-loved game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was acquired from the term for the bad luck toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi riverboats and all over the nation. A few think the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the current craps layout. He appended the Do not Pass line so players could wager on the dice to lose. At another time, he created the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.