Online Keno Guide

Keno is a lottery-based game that traditionally is comprised of a ticket with numbers from 1 to 80. Players select 20 numbers and mark them on their keno playing ticket. After they make their bet 20 numbers are randomly drawn and make up the winning keno numbers for that round of play.

Players win according to how many of the numbers they have hit from the numbers drawn. Each casino offers its own paytables that state the payouts depending on how many numbers the player has hit.

The game of Keno originates from ancient China, although we do not have information on exactly when it was created. There are legends that tell it predates the Great Chinese Wall and was actually used to help finance its build.

Others claim it exists for over 3000 years, making it one of the oldest games in the modern world. Some historians date it back to 200 B.C. to the great Han Dynasty. The word Keno itself comes from the Latin or French word for five and refers to five winning numbers. It is a mystery how the game eventually got its Latin name as the game traveled to America in the 19th century with the wave of Chinese immigrants.

In the United States the game developed into its current form, dropping the 120 Chinese characters and switching to use 80 numbers. When gambling was legalized in the US it didn't include lottery based games so Keno was renamed as "Race Horse Keno" to give the impression it had something to do with racing. When the US government started taxing profits from racing, they renamed it Keno again and continued playing.