Be smart, play clever, and master craps the right way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is just about a century old. Current craps developed from the 12th Century English game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the origin of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been discovered by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s knights played Hazard during a siege on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was acquired from the citadel’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when displaced by the British, the French relocated down south and discovered refuge in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it fair mathematically. It is said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which is acquired from the term for the bad luck toss of two in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and throughout the nation. Most think the dice builder John H. Winn as the father of current craps. In 1907, Winn assembled the current craps layout. He added the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to not win. Afterwords, he created the spaces for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.
This entry was posted on August 27, 2026, 11:25 am and is filed under Craps. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.