Craps

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

Be brilliant, play smart, and learn how to play craps the correct way!

Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps evolved from the 12th Century Anglo game referred to as Hazard. No one knows for certain the birth of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been made up by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the 12th century. It is presumed that Sir William’s soldiers played Hazard through a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The name Hazard was derived from the castle’s name.

Early French colonists imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when banished by the English, the French relocated south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they brought their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is gotten from the name of the losing toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game moved to the Mississippi barges and throughout the country. A few acknowledge the dice maker John H. Winn as the father of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn designed the modern craps setup. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can bet on the dice to not win. Later, he designed the spots for Place wagers and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.