Craps TipsBeginner Craps Tips

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

Be smart, play smart, 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 100 years old. Current craps formed from the old Anglo game referred to as Hazard. Nobody knows for sure the beginnings of the game, however Hazard is believed to have been made up by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, in the twelfth century. It’s supposed that Sir William’s paladins gambled on Hazard amid a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was acquired from the fortress’s name.

Early French colonizers imported the game Hazard to Nova Scotia. In the 18th century, when exiled by the English, the French relocated south and located sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they a while later became known as Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns streamlined the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns changed the name to craps, which was acquired from the name of the bad luck throw of two in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi riverboats and across the country. Many think the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of modern craps. In the early 1900s, Winn built the modern craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so players could wager on the dice to not win. At another time, he created the boxes for Place wagers and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.