Keno History

Around the same time that the nomadic Indians began to settle down on the American continent the game that would become one of the world's most popular Casino games took its form in ancient China.

Legend has it that the ruler of the Han Dynasty, Cheung Leung, had to find a way to finance a war. The citizens of his city refused to contribute to his war fund. As he couldn't pose more taxes on his subjects he invented the game in order to raise the money for the much needed war supplies.

Cheung Leung based the game on the thousand character long poem "The Thousand Character Classic". There are different claims as to who composed this poem. One of the tales relates that it was written in one night and the hair and beard of the author turned white from the effort. The poem was used to teach children how to read, write and count. It had the special feature that not one of the thousand characters was repeated. People in China are still playing the game according to this original version but today it has been reduced to 80 characters.

In China the game quickly became popular and people started to play it all over the country. The game was called "The White Pigeon Game" because the results of the game used to be carried from the cities to the more remote areas by pigeons. It has also been claimed that this game helped to raise the funds to build one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Great Wall of China!

The current name of this lottery like game doesn't reveal its exotic origins as the word Keno has French or Latin roots deriving from the word quine which means "five winning numbers". In America a similar bingo game was originally played under the name of Keno in New Orleans which might explain the French sounding name.
The Chinese version of the game was introduced to the West by the Chinese immigrants that helped to build the American trans-continental railroad in the 19th century. In America the game used to be known as "Chinese lottery". The game was quite popular and in order to get around the ban on lotteries, casinos called it "horse race keno" making it appear as if the numbers referred to horses. A remnant of this is that Keno games are often called Keno races.

As the interest in the game grew in America, the Chinese characters were changed into numbers that a greater public could understand. This is the form of Keno that we still find in casinos today. It is quite amazing that such an old game is still around and with such great popularity. Perhaps this is so because it has kept its initial key ingredients of small bets and the chance of great winnings. As the casinos in America are now free to set their aggregate limits as they wish, a person stands the chance to win a lot. It might not afford him a giant wall but certainly a wonder of his own.