Craps

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

Be smart, play smart, and pickup craps the correct way!

Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Crusades, but current craps is approximately a century old. Modern craps developed from the ancient Anglo game called Hazard. No one knows for sure the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is said to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, around the 12th century. It is theorized that Sir William’s horsemen wagered on Hazard during a siege on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the castle’s name.

Early French colonists brought the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when exiled by the English, the French relocated south and settled in southern Louisiana where they at a later time became Cajuns. When they departed Acadia, they took their preferred game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is acquired from the name of the losing toss of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi barges and all over the country. Most consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps layout. He created the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could bet on the dice to not win. Later, he invented the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.