March 19, 2024
The Casino Game Keno

General Information About Keno

Getting the correct number combination in Keno may be insanely difficult but when you get it just right you might just win the biggest jackpot ever.

The goal of the game of Keno is to between 1 and 20 numbers on a card with 80 possible numbers match up 20 different numbers drawn by the house. The more cards that match and the higher the initial wager, the bigger your win will be.

Bad Reputation

One of the main reasons perhaps that Keno does not have the same following and name recognition as blackjack, roulette or craps is the fact that government gambling regulation in terms of house limits and house edges does not extend to keno and this has allowed many casinos to up the pay scales and create different pay tables that are extremely advantageous to them.

In fact, there are some keno games where the house edge can be as high as 66%, which when compared to the average house edge of around 2.5% on other non-slot casino games is something that is extremely obscene.

However, at the same time, what you will find is that most offline casinos will offer many different pay tables and allow you as a customer to choose the one that you want to play on. This means that you can effectively choose the house edge for the game that you play and therefore if you are knowledgeable enough about the mathematics of the game you can keep the house edge as low as possible.

For example, there are some offline casinos that have keno games with house edges as low as 4% and therefore some of the bad reputation of the keno game is unfairly received.

Online Reputation

The interesting thing about Keno as it relates to online casinos is that the reputation issue is taken to the next level of extreme. Whereas some offline gambling institutions will take advantage of people in order to try and offer ridiculous bets like the 66% house edge bet mentioned above, there are also casinos that try to balance that out and get the reputation of the game back to neutral by offering extremely reasonable house edge percentages like 4%.

This is pronounced to a degree that is almost ridiculous in the online casino world. In casinos that have software packages that they created themselves, they have a lot of flexibility over their Keno games and many of them will actually go ahead and try to offer bets that are classical “sucker bets” in which the player has absolutely no chance of winning anything at any time.

However, there are also other online casinos such as Microgaming casinos that will offer very fun and reasonable Keno games in order to balance this out and when that is considered in the big picture you can see how shopping around and finding an online casino with a very good mathematical house edge is crucial if you happen to be a person that plans on playing a lot of Keno.

Keno Lounge at a Casino

Keno at Casino

Keno is regarded as the oldest game in any casino. It was firstly played more than 2000 years ago in ancient china. Find out more about Keno at casinos below!

The game Keno was invented around 200B.C. by Cheung Leung a Chinese leader. Cheung Leung was a leader of Chinese army for many years. Once he stumbled upon trouble as his army running out of the funds and supplies. The residents of China refused to pay any sort of taxes related to war efforts.

To over come the trouble Cheung Leung started thinking a different idea about gaining money. As a result of which the keno game started. In this game people have to bet on different character of Chinese alphabets and will win if their alphabet were randomly drawn. With the help of the game Leung able to get enough money and he saved the government and the city from ruin.

Modernization of Keno

In the mid 19th century when some Chinese immigrants came to America to work on the railways, they spread keno as Chinese lottery and there are some Americans who show interest on it and keno become a popular game among the Americans.

Despite of the anti gambling laws it remained there because of the Chinese-Americans community, they kept it alive. Keno is just like lottery and also bears the same rules.

More Numbers in Keno = Fewer Odds

  • If one number is played by you, the keno odds for that one number get drawn are 3 to 1.
  • For two numbers the odds are 16 to 1.
  • For getting five numbers the odds are 1,550 to 1.
  • With ten numbers the odds are 8.9 million to 1.
  • Even you can draw 400 million to 1 if your odds are getting 15 numbers.

Online gambling casinos have developed different methods to place online keno bets. These are the betting ways which makes the game more interestingly. Different online keno bets grant different option of betting a smaller amount.

There are different types of keno bets available there. These are

Straight Keno bet

In this betting option you can pick the individual keno number which you want to play, and find out if different number are placed out and rolled. There are chances of playing 15 numbers in a single game, when there is 20 winning number are drawn.

Keno Way bets

It is an online casino keno bets on grouped number, if you bet on 8 numbers there is possibility of grouping it into 4 sets. Each set with two numbers. Although it seems some sort of difficulty but once you practice it is also as easy as general keno rules.

Online casino combination way bets

In this keno option you can make pairs on 2,3- 5,6 and 20,21 we can link the pars with first to second and third and this way we will get a combination of three bets in 4 number. This online keno bet is known as three way four spot keno bet.