The History Behind Craps & Dice
Dice are one of the oldest gambling tools in human history. The path from Roman legionnaires throwing knucklebones to the high-energy craps pit on the Las Vegas Strip runs through the Crusades, the salons of New Orleans, and a single Chicago dice maker who reshaped the modern game.
Roman Soldiers and Arabic Origins
Gambling with dice predates almost every other game on the modern casino floor. Roman soldiers carved knucklebones into rough cubes and threw them in camp; archaeologists have recovered remarkably modern-looking dice from sites across the Roman Empire. The earliest dice we would recognize today — six-sided cubes with pips arranged so opposite faces sum to seven — were widespread across the Mediterranean and Middle East by the time Rome fell.
The direct lineage of modern craps, however, traces to an Arabic word, az-zahr, meaning "the dice." European Crusaders encountered the Arabic dice game in the 12th century and carried a version of it back to England under a name borrowed from the Arabic — Hazard.
Hazard, the Crusades, and a French Reinvention
Hazard became one of the most popular gambling games in medieval and early modern England. The rules were complex — multiple "main" numbers, "chance" rolls, and shifting odds that required either a sharp memory or a willingness to be cheated by someone who had one. Geoffrey Chaucer mentions Hazard in The Canterbury Tales in the late 1300s, an early sign of how widespread the game had become.
Hazard crossed the Channel into France, where it was simplified for the French gambling halls. A losing roll of 2 was called crapaud — French for "toad" — and the streamlined French version of Hazard came to be known by that nickname. When French settlers brought the game across the Atlantic to their colony at New Orleans, the name traveled with it and got Anglicized into the word still used today: craps.
New Orleans and Bernard de Marigny
The story of craps in America almost always begins with one wealthy New Orleans Creole landowner: Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville. Marigny brought the French version of Hazard back to Louisiana around 1805 and introduced it to the city's gambling halls. The game spread quickly along the Mississippi riverboats and west into the saloons of the American frontier, where it became a fixture alongside faro, poker, and Vingt-et-Un.
For roughly a century, American craps remained recognizable as Marigny's French Hazard — the same one-sided structure that allowed sharp players to exploit the game with loaded or fixed dice. The game's reputation suffered accordingly. It was a popular game, but not a trusted one.
John H. Winn and the Modern Layout
The single most important reform to American craps came from a Philadelphia dice maker named John H. Winn. In the early 1900s, Winn introduced two changes that produced the modern game. He added the "Don't Pass" line, allowing players to bet against the shooter and breaking the structural advantage that fixed-dice cheats had relied on for a century. He also redesigned the table layout to accommodate the full slate of bets — pass, don't pass, come, don't come, place, hard ways, field, and propositions — that we still see on every craps table today.
Winn's layout is the direct ancestor of the layout drilled at Game Setters. Every payout the modern dealer makes traces back to a structure he formalized over a century ago.
Las Vegas, 1931 — and the Modern Pit
When Nevada legalized casino gambling in 1931, craps was already the most-played dice game in the country. Las Vegas casinos built their early identity around the game, and craps became the centerpiece of the high-energy, high-volume Strip pit. By the 1950s and 60s, when properties like the Sands and the Sahara were defining the Las Vegas casino experience, the four-position craps crew — boxman, stickman, and two base dealers — had become the standard setup it remains today.
Modern craps is the most procedurally complex game on the casino floor. A single roll can resolve six bets across six players in 15 seconds, each paid at a different rate, all visible to surveillance, with no opportunity to pause and recompute. It is also the highest-paying dealer position in most pits — a function of speed, engagement, and the toke generated by a hot roll.
From Hazard to Your First Stick Call
The history of craps is a thousand-year arc from Roman dice games and Arabic az-zahr to the regulated, surveilled, four-position crew on the modern Las Vegas Strip. Every dealer who picks up the stick today is the latest entry in that line — and the longest training course on the Game Setters schedule reflects how much there is to learn.
The Game Setters Craps Dealer Training course runs approximately 45 hours and covers all four crew positions, payout calculations under speed pressure, stick calls, and the same-bet/different-bet routing that protects the game on every roll.
About Game Setters
Game Setters is a Las Vegas casino dealer training school owned and operated by Eric Sanchez, a 30-year casino industry veteran and the former dealer training program designer for the Venetian and Palazzo on the Strip. We train early-career dealers, experienced dealers, supervisors, and players on regulation tables in a hands-on, one-on-one format.
Craps is the longest course on our schedule and the highest-paying dealer position in most pits. View the full Craps Dealer Training page or browse the complete Table Games hub for the full curriculum.
Learn to Deal Craps at Game Setters
Master the most procedurally complex game on the casino floor with hands-on training from a 30-year industry veteran. The craps course is $550 and runs approximately 45 hours.