Craps Tips

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

Be smart, play cunning, and pickup craps the right way!

Games that use dice and the dice themselves date back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is approximately 100 years old. Modern craps developed from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the ancestry of the game, although Hazard is believed to have been made up by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, in the twelfth century. It is presumed that Sir William’s soldiers wagered on Hazard during a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was gotten from the castle’s name.

Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Canada. In the 18th century, when displaced by the British, the French moved south and settled in the south of Louisiana where they eventually became known as Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favored game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns broke down the game and made it more mathematically fair. It is believed that the Cajuns changed the title to craps, which is acquired from the term for the bad luck throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi scows and throughout the country. Many consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the creator of current craps. In 1907, Winn created the modern craps setup. He appended the Don’t Pass line so gamblers could wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he developed the spaces for Place bets and added the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.