Online Keno - History of the Game !!

History of the game


Keno is quite possibly the oldest of all the gambling games that you will find at any casino, either online or off. Its roots go back to an ancient Chinese game that started over 3000 years ago. In fact, though the game has changed some since that time, it is quite surprising just how close the modern-day game is to the age-old one.

Three thousand years ago in China, the country was straining under the financial and emotional strain of a very costly war. In the many villages of the extraordinarily large country, the villagers refused to pay for anymore weapons or supplies for the war. A man named Cheung Leung decided he had to raise the money to fight the war, so he made up the game, hoping it would catch on and he could sell tickets to buy the much-needed supplies for the soldiers. His plan worked brilliantly.

The original game that Cheung invented was similar to today's Keno in that it had 80 choices to pick from. The difference is that today we pick from 80 numbers, but back then they picked from 80 characters that were based on a very popular poem called the 1000 Characters poem. It is rumored that the game started with 120 characters, though this, like much of history so old, is unconfirmed. The game was sometimes referred to as the White Pigeon Game, because carrier pigeons were used to send the results from village to village, since roads at the time were scarce or poorly routed.

The game came to the US during the railroad boom in the 1800s. As railroads were being built along the newly-settled West coast of the United States, many Chinese immigrants came to work on them and settle there. In doing so, they brought much of their culture, including Keno. In fact the game was so much a part of the new Chinese-American fabric that it was known as the "Chinese Lottery" for years.

Though the casino operators in Las Vegas heard about the popular game in the early 20th century, they actually could not legally begin to offer the game in their city. The reason- gambling was completely legal, but lotteries were not. So some casinos changed the name from "Chinese Lottery" to "Race Horse Keno", replacing the numbers with race horses. When track betting was banned, they simply changed the name to Keno, and the name has stuck.

If you would like to try a game of Keno we recommend the Spin Palace Casino.

Online Keno Tips

Many people who have spent innumerable pleasant hours playing keno in Las Vegas or other gambling hotspots across the globe have not yet availed themselves of the great keno opportunities awaiting them in cyberspace.

This is an unfortunate, if not entirely unpredictable trend. For a large percentage of avid keno players, much of the pleasure this game affords comes from sitting in a comfy chair ensconced within the glittering, bleeping walls of a brick-and-mortar casino, sipping an adult beverage with an umbrella floating near the rim and looking up at the big keno board as the numbers come and go. How, these folks are apt to wonder, can the experience of playing keno while sitting in front of a computer possibly measure up? The good news is that more people are gradually discovering how much fun online keno really is. However, it's a good idea to understand that the game, and how you should approach it, differs somewhat in the online format.

Game Selection

Choose your online keno game with care, taking special consideration for the size of your bankroll. There is a huge variety found in cyberspace, as relates to the range of bets you can make on a single $1 keno ticket. Obviously, the payout structure varies in accordance with these different tiers, and it can be easy to become so seduced by the possibility of colossal winnings that you don't pay attention to the rate at which you are gambling. Depending on how your luck holds out that day, it could be a very short round of keno indeed.

Pick the Right Spot

Remember to be very judicious when it comes to picking the amount of spots you wager on per keno ticket. This number is in actuality a percentage of the total number of spots on which a given casino will allow you to place a bet. Again, you are sure to encounter a huge range of variants in this respect.

While no fixed rule is bound to serve you well in every situation, you may want to consider choosing an amount of spots that ranges from approximately 50 percent to 75 percent of your ticket's total spot limit. For example, if you are holding a ticket that lets you bet on a total of 10 spots, then five spots would represent 50 percent of the ticket's limit, seven spots would represent 70 percent of the limit, and so forth. Applying the rule of thumb, you would want to choose no less than five spots, and no more than eight spots. Outside of those parameters, both your risk and your potential winnings reach undesirable levels.

Finally, you will always want to select the greatest amount of spots that will not affect an even return. For example, if your ticket allows for 15 fifteen spots, the most productive range of is be anywhere from seven to 11 spots. One added benefit of online keno is that, at most sites, by clicking on the screen's spots you can update the payout scale in real time! This makes your calculations all the easier. So clearly there's no need to wait to start playing online keno, now is there?