Keno

The History of Keno

Unlike the Roulette, Poker and Black Jack so popular now, the history of Keno goes back to the ancient times, which are told about in old Chinese rolls dated back to 200 B.C.

The ruler Cheng Lin from the Hanshui dynasty waged exhausting wars during several years. In the end, the citizens inspired by the pacifist ideas refused to subsidize the army. Thus, the resourceful monarch invented a game with the help of which he could successfully loosen the hot-tempered citizens' purse-strings, which were necessary to continue military operations. That game had much in common with modern Keno: they used hieroglyphs instead of figures the whole number of which was 120.

The innovation had a great success and quickly spread all over China. The game was so profitable that, according to the legend, the Great Wall of China was built due to the money gained.

The game immigrated from the east to America together with thousands of the Chinese building the railway.

Regardless of the prohibitions, the Chinese constantly played Keno, so another name of the game was "Chinese Lottery".

However, the game was not so popular in America until the end of 19 century, when finally hieroglyphs were changed for figures, the number of which was reduced to 80.

When in 1931 in the state of Nevada they legalized gambling, lotteries were still under the ban. However, Keno occurred to be beyond the strict control of the state: the name "Chinese Lottery" was changed for "Horse Race Keno", where horses were considered numbers on which they made their bets. Later they prohibited races in Nevada, and the name of the game was shortened to Keno. Even nowadays it exists in this kind and with this name.

The rules of Keno resemble lotto except for only one important difference: a player can choose the quantity and the kind of numbers (in the range of possibilities indicated) on which he will make a bet.