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The Interesting History of Keno

In terms of tradition and cultural heritage, keno stands out among other casino games. Keno is believed to have originated more than 3,000 years ago in China. It will be interesting to know how keno was invented and its transformation into a modern casino game.

Thousands of years ago, there was a local chieftain named Cheung Leung during the ancient Han dynasty of China. A long and devastating war had exhausted Leung's treasury, so he came up with an ingenious way to finance the war and yet not place additional tax burden on the citizens. Leung's invention was a game that was the forerunner of modern-day keno.

The original keno game was based on the "Thousand Character Classic," a popular poem that taught the Chinese how to count. The poem was composed by Zhou Xingsi and consists of 1,000 characters divided into 250 phrases of four characters each. The game used 120 characters with eight characters in each subdivision. Players who hit or win a whole subdivision were rewarded eight taels, which is the Chinese currency at that time.

The game is still prevalent in China nowadays, although the number of characters has been reduced to 80 from the original 120. In ancient times, the game was dubbed the "Game of the White Pigeon" because the game results were relayed to remote towns and villages through carrier pigeons or doves. In fact, one of the world's greatest engineering feats, the Great Wall of China, was financed by keno draws.

Keno did not arrive in the West until the 20th century. California, particularly the city of San Francisco, was the favorite destination of Chinese immigrants who introduced keno to America. From there, keno gained popularity when the Chinese characters were replaced with numbers to help American gamblers understand the game better.

Lotteries and raffles, as well as other forms of gambling, were illegal in the early 1900s, so American keno was first played as an underground activity. That didn't change in the 1930s when the state of Nevada legalized gambling because lotteries were still deemed illegal. As a result, keno operators called the game "horserace keno" to get around the prohibition, although no real horse races were involved in the game. Keno numbers were represented by fictional horses, and to this day, keno draws are still sometimes called "races" in many Las Vegas casinos.

In 1963, the American government began taxing revenues from horse track racing, so the clever Nevada casinos dropped the term "horserace" and simply called the game "keno." Before 1989, the highest amount that anyone can win in keno is $50,000 but since then the jackpot has grown steadily bigger.

Keno is now a fixture and no longer a curiosity in many casinos all over the world, and even on the Internet. So if you want a touch of history and culture in your gambling, then play keno and enjoy the fun and excitement.