Keno was first played in 200 before Christ by the Chinese army commander, Cheung Leung who used this game as a way to finance his declining forces. The metropolis of Cheung was waging a war, and after awhile of war time appeared to be looking at a country wide shortage of food with the drastic drop in supplies. Cheung Leung had to develop a rapid response for the economic disaster and to produce money for his army. He, as it follows created the game we now know as keno and it was a great success.
Keno once was referred to as the White Pigeon Game, due to the fact that the winning numbers were sent out by pigeons from bigger municipalities to the smaller towns. The lotto ‘Keno’ was imported to the US in the 1800s by Chinese expatriates who migrated to the States to jobs. In those times, Keno was played with one hundred and twenty numbers.
Today, Keno is typically played with eighty numbers in just about all of the US land based casinos along with net casinos. Keno is largely enjoyed today as a result of the laid back nature of betting the game and the basic fact that there are no skills required to play Keno. Despite the fact that the odds of getting a win are terrible, there is constantly the chance that you could win quite large with very little gaming investment.
Keno is enjoyed with eighty numbers with 20 numbers picked each round. Gamblers of Keno can select from two to ten numbers and wager on them, as much or as little as they are able to. The pay out of Keno is according to the bets made and the roll out of matching numbers.
Keno grew in universal appeal in the US near the end of the 1800’s when the Chinese letters were changed with more familiar, American numbers. Lotteries weren’t covered under the legalization of gambling in Nevada State in 1931. The casinos altered the name of the ‘Chinese lotto’ to ‘horse race keno’ employing the concept that the numbers are horses and you are wanting your horses to come in. When a law passed that taxed off track gambling, the casinos swiftly changed the name to ‘Keno’.
