Craps Information

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

Be smart, play cunning, and discover how to play craps the correct way!

Games that use dice and the dice themselves goes all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but modern craps is approximately one hundred years old. Modern craps evolved from the 12th Century English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the birth of the game, but Hazard is said to have been discovered by the Anglo, Sir William of Tyre, around the twelfth century. It’s believed that Sir William’s knights bet on Hazard through a blockade on the castle Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortress’s name.

Early French settlers imported the game Hazard to Acadia. In the 1700s, when driven away by the British, the French relocated down south and found sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they a while later became Cajuns. When they were driven out of Acadia, they brought their best-loved game, Hazard, with them. The Cajuns modernized the game and made it mathematically fair. It’s said that the Cajuns adjusted the name to craps, which was acquired from the name of the non-winning throw of 2 in the game of Hazard, referred to as "crabs."

From Louisiana, the game extended to the Mississippi riverboats and across the country. A few consider the dice maker John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In 1907, Winn designed the current craps setup. He put in place the Don’t Pass line so gamblers can wager on the dice to lose. Afterwords, he designed the spaces for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.