Keno’s History

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Keno was first played in two hundred BC by the Chinese army commander, Cheung Leung who used this game as a way to finance his failing forces. The city of Cheung was waging a war, and after a bit of war time seemed to be facing country wide shortage of food with the excessive decrease in supplies. Cheung Leung had to create a rapid fix for the economic adversity and to acquire money for his forces. He therefore developed the game we now know as keno and it was a wonderful success.

Keno was well-known as the White Pigeon Game, seeing as the winning numbers were delivered by pigeons from larger municipalities to the tinier villages. The lotto ‘Keno’ was brought to America in the 1800s by Chinese expatriates who headed to the United States for work. In those times, Keno used 120 numbers.

Today, Keno is normally played with eighty numbers in just about all of American based casinos along with online casinos. Keno is commonly liked today because of the laid back nature of betting the game and the simple fact that there are no skills needed to play Keno. Regardless of the fact that the chances of succeeding are horrible, there is constantly the chance that you will hit quite big with very little gaming investment.

Keno is enjoyed with 80 numbers with 20 numbers selected each game. Enthusiasts of Keno can select from two to ten numbers and wager on them, as much or as little as they want to. The pay out of Keno is dependent on the bets made and the roll out of matching numbers.

Keno has grown in popularity in the US since the close of the 1800’s when the Chinese characters were changed with more familiar, US numbers. Lottos weren’t covered under the legalization of gambling in the state of Nevada in 1931. The casinos renamed the ‘Chinese lotto’ to ‘horse race keno’ employing the notion that the numbers are horses and you are wanting your horses to come in. When a law passed that levied a tax on off track wagering, the casinos quickly altered the name to ‘Keno’.