|
Compared to the complex rules
established for the game of craps,
keno is simple and easy to learn. Its basic structure takes
the concept of lottery as its guide with 80 numbers to choose from.
The gambler places bets on up to 15 of these ‘spots’ and then wins
payoffs according to the odds given. There are no confusing strategies
or table layouts to negotiate in keno, people can pretty much start
playing and winning straight away.
Keno originated from China some three thousand years
ago in the Han dynasty. The money generated from its early form which
involved some 120 odd Chinese characters, was supposedly used to fund
the Chinese army and the making of the Great Wall of China. The
popular game was introduced to the US with the Chinese immigrants who
came out in the nineteenth century to work on the railroads. It was
known as ‘Chinese lottery’ at this time and evolved into the game we
recognize today as it became popular amongst
Americans. When gambling was finally legalized
in Nevada in 1931 the name had to be changed so it could slip under
the radar, as lotteries were still banned at this time. This is when
it took on the name of ‘race horse keno’. Each of the numbers were
used to represent a horse and even today people sometimes refer to
playing keno as the ‘races’. When racing became illegal the name
simply became ‘keno’.
The basic premise of
keno is like that of any
lottery, there is no dice to roll or dealers to contend with, its just
a case of correctly guessing some of the twenty numbers that are
randomly drawn. The amount of numbers you choose to guess is entirely
up to you, but if you play five numbers it is called playing a ‘five
spot’, and this terminology can apply to any number of spots from one
to fifteen. The amount of numbers that you match from the twenty drawn
and the ones you have marked are called the ‘catch’. So if you mark
lots of numbers you have to catch more in order to win. The payoffs
lessen dramatically as your catch diminishes. If, for example, you
play a ‘five spot’ and catch all five you might get paid close to 300
to 1, but as soon as you drop down to only matching 3 numbers it might
be 50 to 1. This accounts for some of the advantage to playing and
winning keno, the odds increase rapidly so you have the chance to make
big wins not slow bankrolls for other games in the casino like craps.
With the evolution of technology and computers, the
old-fashioned balls rolling around in a big barrel have been replaced
with a more reliably random system of computer-generated numbers. This
makes keno is a perfect game to play online, other than the added
excitement of playing in a room full of people, there are no losses to
the experience of playing keno using web software. A good tip though
is to click on the rules and payouts section of the site that you are
playing on to check what the site’s policy is. The great thing about
keno is that the house percentage is very even, it stays the same
regardless of how many numbers you choose to mark.
|
