Craps

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Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is only about a century old. Modern craps come about from the old English game called Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the twelfth century. It’s presumed that Sir William’s horsemen gambled on Hazard through a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was gotten from the citadel’s name.

Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 18th century, when banished by the British, the French moved south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became known as Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was gotten from the name of the losing throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi river boats and all over the country. Most think the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn created the modern craps setup. He added the Do not Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he established the spots for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.