The Keno
- Club Keno delivers thrills and a chance to win up to $100,000 in a fast-paced Draw Game with 20 numbers drawn every four minutes. And now, no matter where you choose to play Keno, you can get in on the excitement with the Multiplier, Bulls-Eye, Double Bulls-Eye and Progressive Jackpot features.
- A premier auction house in Manhattan, founded by Leigh Keno, specializing in fine art, jewelry, furniture, decoration, Asian art and other specialties.
- All Keno prizes including Bull's-eye prizes shall be the prizes set forth except when the prize in any game from a 5-spot game through a 10-spot game exceeds $599 where total prizes for that game and the prize category for a single draw exceed $1,500,000. If that occurs, prizes shall be calculated on a pari-mutuel basis.
- Keno is believed to date back to China in the 1st century AD when characters from one of Confucius` poems were used, rather than numbers, in the matrix. Keeping the same flexibility of playing methods, the version offered through the Rhode Island Lottery since September 1992 bears a resemblance to the original game.
Keno/kiːnoʊ/ is a lottery-like gambling game often played at modern casinos, and also offered as a game by some state lotteries.
Players wager by choosing numbers ranging from 1 through (usually) 80. After all players make their wagers, 20 numbers (some variants draw fewer numbers) are drawn at random, either with a ball machine similar to ones used for lotteries and bingo, or with a random number generator.
Each casino sets its own series of payouts, called 'paytables'. The player is paid based on how many numbers were chosen (either player selection, or the terminal picking the numbers), the number of matches out of those chosen, and the wager.
There are a wide variety of keno paytables depending on the casino, usually with a larger 'house edge' than other games offered by that casino. The house edge ranges from less than 4 percent[1] to over 35 percent.[2] The typical house edge for non-slot casino games is under 5 percent.[3]
History[edit]
The word keno has French or Latin roots (Fr. quine 'five winning numbers', L. quini 'five each'), but by all accounts the game originated in China. Legend has it that the invention of the game saved an ancient city in time of war, and its widespread popularity helped raise funds to build the Great Wall of China. In modern China, the idea of using lotteries to fund a public institution was not accepted before the late 19th century.[4]
The Keno draws take place every day at 7:29 p.m. How do you play the game? To play the Keno game players need to choose 10 numbers between 1 and 80, or use the Easy Pick option to have them randomly generated. How much can I win playing Keno?
Chinese lotteries are not documented before 1847 when the Portuguese government of Macau decided to grant a license to lottery operators. According to some, results of keno games in great cities were sent to outlying villages and hamlets by carrier pigeons, resulting in its Chinese name 白鸽票 báigē piào, literally 'white dove ticket', pronounced baak-gap-piu in Cantonese (on which the Western spelling 'pak-ah-pu' / 'pakapoo' was based).
The Chinese played the game using sheets printed with Chinese characters, often the first 80 characters of the Thousand Character Classic, from which the winning characters were selected.[5][6] Eventually, Chinese immigrants introduced keno to the US in the 19th century,[7] where the name was Westernized into boc hop bu[6] and puck-apu.[5] By 1866, it had already become a widely popular gambling game in Houston, Texas, under the name keno.[8]
Probabilities[edit]
Keno payouts are based on how many numbers the player chooses and how many of those numbers are 'hit', multiplied by the proportion of the player's original wager to the 'base rate' of the paytable. Typically, the more numbers a player chooses and the more numbers hit, the greater the payout, although some paytables pay for hitting a lesser number of spots. For example, it is not uncommon to see casinos paying $500 or even $1,000 for a 'catch' of 0 out of 20 on a 20 spot ticket with a $5.00 wager. Payouts vary widely by casino. Most casinos allow paytable wagers of 1 through 20 numbers, but some limit the choice to only 1 through 10, 12, and 15 numbers, or 'spots' as the numbers selected are known.[9]
The probability of a player hitting all 20 numbers on a 20 spot ticket is 1 in 3,535,316,142,212,174,320.[10]
Even though it is virtually impossible to hit all 20 numbers on a 20 spot ticket, the same player would typically also get paid for hitting 'catches' 0, 1, 2, 3, and 7 through 19 out of 20, often with the 17 through 19 catches paying the same amount as the solid 20 hit. Some of the other paying 'catches' on a 20 spot ticket or any other ticket with high 'solid catch' odds are in reality very possible to hit:
| Hits | Probability |
|---|---|
| 0 | 1 in 843.380 |
| 1 | 1 in 86.446 |
| 2 | 1 in 20.115 |
| 3 | 1 in 8.009 |
| 4 | 1 in 4.877 |
| 5 | 1 in 4.287 |
| 6 | 1 in 5.258 |
| 7 | 1 in 8.826 |
| 8 | 1 in 20.055 |
| 9 | 1 in 61.420 |
| 10 | 1 in 253.801 |
| 11 | 1 in 1,423.822 |
| 12 | 1 in 10,968.701 |
| 13 | 1 in 118,084.920 |
| 14 | 1 in 1,821,881.628 |
| 15 | 1 in 41,751,453.986 |
| 16 | 1 in 1,496,372,110.872 |
| 17 | 1 in 90,624,035,964.712 |
| 18 | 1 in 10,512,388,171,906.553 |
| 19 | 1 in 2,946,096,785,176,811.500 |
| 20 | 1 in 3,535,316,142,212,174,320.000 |
Probabilities change significantly based on the number of spots that are picked on each ticket.
References[edit]
- ^Online Keno odds
- ^Shackleford, Michael. 'Keno - Strategy and Odds by The Wizard of Odds'. Wizard of Odds Consulting, Inc. Retrieved 21 July 2010.
- ^Casino advantages for various games
- ^'Keno History'. kenoonline.org. Retrieved 9 June 2015.
- ^ abMelanie Yap, Dianne Leong Man. Colour, confusion and concessions, pp.240-241.
- ^ ab'Chinese Gambling Games; Mysteries of Fan Tan And Boc Hop Bu. Two Popular Games in the Chinese Quarters of American Cities-- Superstitions of the Players. Boc Hop Bu. Superstitions'(PDF). The New York Times. 5 February 1888.
- ^History of Keno. Transl. from German, 2017.
- ^'The New York Times'. 29 July 1866.Cite journal requires
journal=(help) - ^'Tutorial - How to play Keno'. Gambling Info. Retrieved 27 June 2011.
- ^Mark Bollman (2014). Basic Gambling Mathematics: The Numbers Behind the Neon. CRC Press. pp. 40–41. ISBN9781482208931.
The prize tables in keno can look a bit complicated. Here’s our quick tips on what to look out for in keno pay schedules.
Each casino has its own system of payouts, which you will find set out in the Keno brochures or payout schedules around the casino or, if you’re playing Video keno you’ll find a payout table on each machine. An example is shown below.
The term ‘spot’ refers to how many numbers you have marked on your ticket. The term ‘catch’ refers to how many of your chosen numbers match what the house draws.
The table shows what you will win for a 1 coin stake. You need to multiply these amounts by the amount you are wagering. So in the example below, if you make a $2 bet, pick 4 spots and catch 3 of them you will win $12 (that is, $2 x 6).
This schedule does not pay out if you don’t match any numbers. But in some cases if you mark a lot of numbers the casino pays off if you catch 0.
Note that in Keno you do not get your stake back if you win.
Another Example of a Keno Paytable
The Kenosha Kid
This is the payout schedule for online casinos running on Microgaming software. If you like the look of it, here’s where to find Microgaming casinos.
Keno NC Education Lottery
In a live casino keno game, where lots of players are gambling on the same draw, the most the house can pay out for any one draw is generally $50,000. If there are too many winners they will each get a proportionate share of this sum.