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Although there are other online casino games but keno is very much identical to the game of lotto. Players while playing keno usually pray to keep the luck on their side so that they can win with every round as it goes. Keno has been played for many centuries now. One of the oldest gambling games, though “keno” has a name with Latin or French roots. However, the game is believed to have originated in China during the Han Dynasty 3000 years ago.
Around 200 A.D, Cheung Leung, belonging to Han dynasty, introduced this game. Players were required to select a character set out of the 120 symbols.



These symbols were further subdivided into sub-categories, about 8 in number. Random combinations were drawn by the emperor for two times each day. If gamblers lost on one sub-category, 3 additional bets were lost whereas if gamblers won on a particular sub-category, ten additional bets were won. Hence, this game was also referred as Chinese lottery.


The results of the lottery were sent through messenger doves over the tremendous domain of the emperor. Hence, the game also started being referred by these white pigeons. This lottery was called as “idiot taxes” by certain Chinese scholars as Cheung Leung used the generated money for reinstating the army and building Great wall. Nevertheless, Cheung Leung’s name always appears in the origin of keno for being responsible for creating this game.


Although illegal, keno thrived among Chinese immigrants, especially around big cities like San Francisco. It became known as the Chinese lottery. English speaking Americans became interested in the game, but had difficulty differentiating the Chinese characters used in the game. Around the beginning of the 20th century, keno operators replaced the Chinese characters with Arabic numbers to entice more players.


Although Nevada legalized most forms of gambling in 1931, the legislature did not legalize lottery. And the Chinese lottery was definitely a lottery. To get around this pain in the neck, operators simply changed the name to “Race Horse Keno”. Each number was deemed to be a horse. Today many keno operations still call their games “races”. When the U.S. Government passed a law taxing off track betting, the name was once again changed, this time to just keno.
As keno gained popularity, the idea behind this was to consider numbers as horses. Draws were referred as races here. But, after Nevada started taxing off-track betting, the “Keno” was eventually adopted. Nevada’s total payout limit towards keno in 1963 was $25,000. This became 50,000 in 1979 and up to this day, it remains one of the most sought after games either in casinos, national lotteries and at online casino.


Keno’s popularity is undeniable and with today’s advanced computer software. You can enjoy seeing a bouncing balls, great odds and easy rules make online keno great fun and the graphics for keno can give the player the feeling that he is in a real casino environment . Keno is another popular casino game that you find in most of the online casino available on the Internet today.