The History of Keno

Keno has a fascinating history. Thanks to the games predecessors, an entire city was saved during war! Although we love to play the game of keno today, understanding its history will help us to appreciate it so much more!



The origins of Keno can be found in ancient Chinese scrolls dating back to the 2nd century B.C.E. The story told in these scrolls is a fascinating one! During the Han Dynasty, a Chinese city was under siege, having experienced an ongoing war for many years. Cheung Leung (it is unclear who exactly this man was, maybe the mayor of the city) was beginning to have difficulties raising the necessary funds needed to defend the city, as the people had tired of giving their money to support the war. Fearing the demise of the city, Cheung Leung created a gambling game, in order to get the citizens of the city to voluntarily give money. The game worked and the funds raised enabled Cheung Leung to defeat their opponents and save the city!

Not only did this early version defeat an army, but the extra money left over and the further revenues also helped to pay for the building of the Great Wall of China! The game came to be known as the White Pigeon game. They called it this because in order for the cities to send the winning numbers out to small towns and less populated areas, they tied the numbers to the leg of a passenger pigeon and sent the bird out with the news!

What Early Keno was Like

The early games of keno used 120 Chinese characters, rather than the 80 numbers that we see today. These characters were even used to create an amazing Chinese poem, called the "Thousand Character Classic". This poem was a classic that was used as a children's primer, to help them learn some of the characters of the Chinese language. The first 120 characters were the same characters that were used for the original keno game!

The tales surrounding this poem are extremely interesting in themselves! One of the stories tells that famous penman, called Wang Hi-che wrote each one of the characters on a separate piece of parchment. The Emperor at the time, Liang Wu Ti told him to arrange all of the characters into sentences that rhymed and had a meaning. Wang Hi-che spent the entire night working on this task, and managed to accomplish it by the next morning, an impossible feat! Due to the difficulty of performing such a task, Wang Hi- che's hair and beard turned completely white!

Keno in the United States

In the 19th century, Keno was imported to the United States by the Chinese immigrants. The game moved west with them as they built the railroad lines across the country. Although the game was considered gambling and thereby made illegal, the Chinese never stopped playing the game and therefore, it didn't disappear into the dusty pages of history! Because the game was played so frequently in early California, it became known as the Chinese lottery.

The Chinese lottery did not gain too much popularity, as they continued to play with Chinese characters until the late 19th century. At that time, the numbers were changed to Arabic numbers to add to the exotic sense of the game and to entice more players. In time, the numbers were changed to the now familiar numbers used in the keno game.

Casino Keno Gambling

In 1931, gambling was made legal in the State of Nevada. Although this was a great leap forward for the gambling community, lotteries were still considered illegal. As keno was then considered a lottery, it was official illegal. This tiny issue had no effect on the game of keno, and its name was changed to "Race Horse Keno". It became a part of the casino system in Nevada.

Soon afterwards, the State of Nevada passed a new law banning off track betting, creating another small hurdle for the "Race Horse Keno" game. As with the previous incident, one small technicality was not enough to stop the game, and the name was changed again to simply, Keno.

From here on out, the Keno game had no more legal problems, and soon became a staple at casinos! Often times, it can be seen by people whose heritage is Chinese, that when choosing their keno numbers, they are based on a certain meaning, or character. Sometimes it is a lucky number like a birthday or anniversary; sometimes it is the number that is equivalent to a certain character, either way it adds much meaning to the game.

Internet Keno

Although Keno was a popular game in the land based casinos, once keno went online, it received a whole new popularity! Not only is keno at all of the online casinos, but there are websites, chat rooms, and casinos dedicated solely to the game of keno! The game of keno is getting more and more popular every day, and who would have thought that such a game has had such a valiant history! Learn more about Keno at First Web Internet Casino -then play Keno for money - or just for fun. Try this great game and enjoy!