Cheung Leung, a Chinese military leader, brought Keno to China in 200 BC. He used it to raise money for his failing army. He used the money from this game to help his army, which was losing ground. The city of Cheung was at war, and after a while, it looked like a national famine was coming because supplies had dropped so much. Cheung Leung had to come up with a quick way to fix the economy and bring in money for his army. So, he made the game we now call "keno," and it was a huge hit.
Keno used to be called the White Pigeon Game because the winning numbers were sent from bigger cities to smaller villages by pigeons. In the 1800s, Chinese people who came to the US to work brought the lottery game "Keno" with them. At that time, there were 120 numbers used in Keno.
Most casinos in the United States and most online casinos use 80 numbers when playing Keno. Keno is popular today because it is easy to play and doesn't require any special skills. Even though the odds of winning aren't good, there is always a chance that you could win quite a lot with a small amount of money.
Keno is played today with 80 numbers, and each game draws 20 numbers. Keno players can pick from 2 to 10 numbers and bet as much or as little as they want on those numbers. Keno pays out based on how much was bet and how many matching numbers were rolled.
The "thousand character classic" is the legacy of keno. It is a Chinese poem made up of 1000 numbers, each of which is a separate character. The poem rhymes. It started out as a new way for kids to learn, but now the characters are so well-known that they are often used as a romantic way to count. Instead of just numbers, these symbols were used on the first keno boards.
Near the end of the 19th century, when the Chinese characters were changed to American numbers, Keno became more popular in the United States. When gambling was made legal in Nevada in 1931, lotteries were not included. The casinos changed the name of the "Chinese lottery" to "horse race keno" because the numbers are horses and you want your horses to win. When a law was passed that taxed off-track betting, Nevada quickly changed the name to "keno."
