Dice and dice based games go back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is only about 100 years old. Current craps developed from the ancient English game titled Hazard. No one is certain of the ancestry of the game, but Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the 1300’s. It is presumed that Sir William’s knights gambled on Hazard during a siege on the fortification Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the castle’s name.
Initial French colonists imported the game Hazard to French North America (the area of Acadia, which is Nova Scotia today). In the 1700s, when exiled by the English, the French headed south and happen upon refuge in the south of Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they left Nova Scotia, they brought their preferred game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it more statistically fair. It is believed that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was developed from the name of the non-winning toss of 2 in the game of Hazard, called "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and across the union. Many see the die maker John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the current craps table design. He included the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to not win. Later, he created the spaces for Place bets and added the Big six, Big eight, and Hardways.
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