Craps

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Dice and dice games goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately 100 years old. Modern craps formed from the ancient English game referred to as Hazard. No one absolutely knows the beginnings of the game, but Hazard is said to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It is theorized that Sir William’s knights gambled on Hazard during a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the fortification’s name.

Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when driven away by the British, the French headed down south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they left Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it more mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is derived from the term for the non-winning toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi barges and throughout the nation. Most think the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn developed the modern craps setup. He added the Don’t Pass line so players could bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he designed the boxes for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.