For those who need their lottery fix or a lottery-playing experience at casinos, keno answers the call. Thanks to today’s impressive technology, there are more online keno variants available than ever before. Fun and easy to play, discover why today’s keno options are more than just a lottery game.
From Pigeons to Glory – A Brief History of Keno
Like most gambling stories, Keno can be traced back to an Emperor who needed money over 2000 years ago. The funds were desperately needed to fund wars as well as continue building the Great Wall of China. However, it is widely believed that Cheung Leung put together a lottery-style game with the first 120 characters around 208 BCE.
He named the game Baige Pao or Pak-a-pu, which loosely translates to mean white pigeon, in honor of the pigeon messengers. The progenitor of not just keno but also bingo and the lottery, Baige Pao, would make its way to America in the middle of the nineteenth century with the Chinese laborers who were brought to America to build the railroads.
Its popularity in and around San Francisco would last from the 1840s right up until the Second World War. As non-Asian players discovered keno, the traditional Chinese characters were replaced with the ones we are familiar with today.
The first use of keno in a Nevada casino was at the Palace Club in 1931, and rather than symbols or numbers, the Palace Club used horse names. It didn’t take long for keno to catch on throughout American casinos and even some popular clubs.
With the first wave of American online casinos coming online in 2012, new audiences discovered keno for the first time. With better technology and the talents of the top game developers like Microgaming, keno is one of the most popular real money casino games.
Mastering the Keno Fundamentals
One advantage of playing keno online is the chance to purchase multiple keno cards. While some land-based casinos support multiple draws during the round, most offer one card per round. The basic keno card is divided into four sections.
The first section is where you mark how many spots you want to pick. Spots is the keno term for filling out numbers, like you would playing the lottery. Also, the basic keno card offers up to 80 spots. Most keno games offer up to 20 spots per card. However, the latest online keno variants might offer more like Super Keno with bonus rounds. After submitting the card, you wait for the numbers to be drawn.
The more spots that hit, the bigger your payout. Part of the fun of playing keno is the chance to win decent money, even with one winning spot. Each keno game may have a slightly different pay scale, but most will have a pay table.
Filling out the Card
If playing in person, the technical tab is to “dab” the keno spot with an X to make your selection clear. Playing online keno supports using the autodab feature. The autodab feature works similarly to the autoplay function for playing slot games. If you are unsure about which spots to fill out, the autodab feature steps up and does the work for you. Even better, it submits the keno card on time, so you don’t have to worry about missing out like playing in person.
In case you were wondering, playing keno at licensed online casinos ensures gaming fairness. Software providers like NetEnt and Microgaming use a random number generator to give players confidence and assurance of fair gaming results.
Understanding the Different Keno Bets
Believe it or not, keno offers players multiple ways to get to winning spots. Let’s discover the most common keno bets.
Straight Bets
Straight bets are the most common for keno games. Simply pick up to 20 numbers and wait to see which spots pay off.
Way Bets
Way bets also give players the chance of choosing several spots from a single keno card. Because players can choose more spots, way bets cost more than straight bets. By spending more to boost the winning odds, many beginners start with way bets.
Split Bets
Meant for more advanced players, split bets call for choosing two numbers and betting on each one of them or both of them together as a set. You can split bets on any number from 1 to 20, or you can even choose to split bets on two different numbers from each row.
Combination Bets
A combination bet is a type of bet where you select a group of numbers and bet on all of them. The main advantage of making combination bets is that it gives you an increased chance of winning since you are betting on multiple numbers simultaneously. The more combinations that you choose, the higher your chances of success become.
Conclusion
From funding ancient Chinese city state wars to its current online comeback, the history of keno has demonstrated that it’s not that it can adapt to changing times. The basic rules and large jackpots have made it stand the test of time with many iterations.
Sure, live-action Keno is no longer a staple of most brick-and-mortar casinos. Still, the game’s digital form allows it to breathe life into new opportunities to woo players around the world with more variants, including progressive jackpot options.
With a Master in Architectural Studies from University of Pennysylvania, Marwa Haydar has pioneered living spaces since 2005. Her expertise, initially honed in a prestigious architectural firm, is evident in her approach to creating environments. Marwa became part of our team in 2019 and has since been a driving force in our home improvement section, known for her practical yet stylish solutions. She’s been spearheading our design workshops since then, infusing her passion for teaching into her work. In her leisure time, Marwa enjoys exploring historic architecture and is an enthusiastic pottery hobbyist, further enriching her understanding of form and texture.
