Craps

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

Be cunning, play brilliant, and master craps the correct way!

Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps evolved from the ancient Anglo game called Hazard. Nobody knows for certain the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the twelfth century. It’s theorized that Sir William’s soldiers wagered on Hazard during a siege on the fortress Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortification’s name.

Early French colonizers brought the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when expelled by the English, the French moved south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it fair mathematically. It is said that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is derived from the name of the non-winning throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, known as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi river boats and all over the nation. A few consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps layout. He appended the Don’t Pass line so players could bet on the dice to not win. Later, he created the spaces for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.