Keno’s History

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Keno was first played in 200 BC by the Chinese military leader, Cheung Leung who used this game as a way to finance his failing army. The city of Cheung was waging a war, and after a bit of war time appeared to be looking at a country wide shortage of food with the excessive decrease in supplies. Cheung Leung needed to develop a rapid fix for the economic disaster and to create money for his forces. He therefore developed the game we now know as keno and it was a fantastic success.

Keno once was well-known as the White Pigeon Game, due to the fact that the winning numbers were delivered by pigeons from bigger municipalities to the lesser towns. The lottery ‘Keno’ was brought to the US in the 1800s by Chinese expatriates who headed to the States for work. In those times, Keno used one hundred and twenty numbers.

Today, Keno is typically wagered on with 80 numbers in almost all of American brick and mortar casinos as well as online casinos. Keno is commonly loved today because of the relaxed nature of playing the game and the simple fact that there are no skills required to enjoy Keno. Regardless of the fact that the odds of getting a win are horrible, there is constantly the chance that you might hit quite big with little gaming investment.

Keno is played with eighty numbers and twenty numbers are drawn each game. Enthusiasts of Keno can pick from 2 to ten numbers and wager on them, whatever amount they want to. The pay out of Keno is according to the wagers made and the matching of numbers.

Keno has grown in acceptance in the US since the end of the 1800’s when the Chinese letters were replaced with more familiar, US numbers. Lotteries were not covered under the laws of gaming in the state of Nevada in 1931. The casinos altered the name of the ‘Chinese lotto’ to ‘horse race keno’ utilizing the idea that the numbers are horses and you want your horses to place. When the Nevada government passed a law that levied a tax on off track gambling, casinos swiftly adjusted the name to ‘Keno’.