Keno was introduced in two hundred BC by the Chinese military commander, Cheung Leung who utilized this game as a way to finance his declining forces. The city of Cheung was at war, and after a bit of war time seemed to be looking at a country wide famine with the excessive drop in supplies. Cheung Leung needed to come up with a quick fix for the financial disaster and to create money for his army. He therefore developed the game we now know as keno and it was a great success.

Keno was referred to as the White Pigeon Game, because the winning numbers were sent out by pigeons from larger municipalities to the lesser villages. The lottery ‘Keno’ was brought to the US in the 19th century by Chinese expatriates who migrated to the States for work. In those times, Keno used 120 numbers.

Today, Keno is most often gambled on with eighty numbers in a majority of American land based casinos along with web casinos. Keno is largely played today as a result of the relaxed nature of gambling the game and the basic fact that there are no expertise required to play Keno. Despite the fact that the chances of winning are horrible, there is constantly the chance that you will hit quite large with very little gaming investment.

Keno is played with eighty numbers and 20 numbers are picked each round. Gamblers of Keno can pick from 2 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 United States near the end of the 19th century when the Chinese characters were replaced with , US numbers. Lottos were not covered under the laws of wagering in the state of Nevada 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 want your horses to come in. When the Nevada government passed a law that levied a tax on off track gambling, the casinos swiftly changed the name to ‘Keno’.