Keno’s History
Keno was created in two hundred before Christ by the Chinese military leader, Cheung Leung who utilized keno as a financial resource for his declining forces. The city of Cheung was waging a battle, and after some time appeared to be looking at a country wide shortage of food with the dramatic drop in supplies. Cheung Leung needed to come up with a rapid fix for the financial adversity and to produce revenue for his military. He therefore developed the game we now know as keno and it was a great success.
Keno once was known as the White Pigeon Game, since the winning numbers were delivered by pigeons from bigger municipalities to the tinier towns. The lotto ‘Keno’ was imported to the US in the 1800s by Chinese expatriates who headed to the States for work. In those times, Keno was played with one hundred and twenty numbers.
Today, Keno is normally gambled on with eighty numbers in almost all of the US land based casinos along with net casinos. Keno is largely loved today because of the laid back nature of gambling the game and the basic fact that there are no skills required to play Keno. Despite the fact that the odds of coming away with a win are appalling, there is always the possibility that you could hit quite large with very little gambling investment.
Keno is played with 80 numbers with twenty numbers picked each game. Enthusiasts of Keno can select from 2 to 10 numbers and wager on them, whatever amount they are able to. The pay out of Keno is according to the wagers made and the roll out of matching numbers.
Keno grew in popularity in the US near the close of the 1800’s when the Chinese letters were replaced with more familiar, American numbers. Lottos were not covered under the legalization of gambling in the state of Nevada in 1931. The casinos renamed the ‘Chinese lottery’ to ‘horse race keno’ employing 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, the casinos quickly altered the name to ‘Keno’.