Keno  Game

According to an ancient scroll, Cheung Leung introduced the game we now call Keno about 200 B.C. in China. Cheung’s city was at war for several years and supplies for his army were failing. The people of his city refused to contribute any more to the war fund, so Cheung created a game of chance to produce revenue to provision his army. The game was an instant success and the city was saved.
Spreading throughout China, the game was used to help fund the building of the Great Wall. The game became known as the White Pigeon Game because carrier pigeons were used to send the results (winning numbers) from the games in the larger cities  to small villages and hamlets.

Remaining basically
the same, the game was brought to the United States by Chinese immigrants who
labored on the railroad in the Old West.
When Keno originated about 200 years B.C. in China, characters were used in the body of the ticket rather than numbers 1 through 80. These characters are the first eighty of an ancient poem known as “The Thousand Character Classic”.

The Thousand Character
Classic was used in China as the second primer for teaching reading and writing
to children. By putting one thousand characters into a more or less coherent rhymed form, learning was presumably made easier and more interesting . It is something of a very great achievement in that no character is repeated. This poem was so well known in China that its one thousand characters, arranged in order, were often used as a fanciful way of notation or counting from one to a thousand.
There are many legendary stories about the origin of the poem. One story relates that the celebrated penman Wang Hi-che wrote the thousand characters on a thousand separate pieces of paper. The Emperor Liang Wu Ti then directed Chou Hsing-szu to arrange them in rhymed sentences to convey a meaning. This task was accomplished in A SINGLE NIGHT, but such was the mental effort that the compilers hair and beard were turned completely WHITE before morning!
The Chinese language is so different in origin and structure from Western languages that it is usually impossible to make a meaningful literal translation. If ten Western scholars sat down to make a translation, you always would have ten different results, agreeing in a general sense but varying in choice of words and sentence construction.
The poem is read
from TOP to BOTTOM and from RIGHT to LEFT .
10-20-30-40…..
sky earth mysteries yellow
50-60-70-80….. universe infinite vast space
9-19-29-39….. sun moon full declining
49-59-69-79….. stars lunar arrange widely
8-18-28-38….. cold come heat go
48-58-68-78….. autumn harvest winter storage
7-17-27-37….. intercalary surplus complete year
47-57-67-77….. musical instrument harmonize nature
6-16-26-36….. cloud ascend cause rain
46-56-66-76….. dew frozen create frost
5-15-25-35….. gold make beautiful water
45-55-65-75….. jade from high mountain
4-14-24-34….. sword label high gate
44-54-64-74….. pearl called night shine
3-13-23-33….. fruit precious plum crab apple
43-53-63-73….. vegetables important mustard ginger
2-12-22-32….. sea salty river salt less
42-52-62-72….. scales submerge feathers soar
1-11-21-31….. dragon teacher fire emperor
41-51-61-71….. bird official human sovereign
While the use of
these characters on a Keno ticket is merely to represent numbers, some Chinese
people select the character marked for the word meaning. The words selected usually
have a special meaning to them such as; pronounced the same as their name, or
an event that has happened to them, or a recent dream.
 
Keno
Rules
The
Keno game is played with a traditional 80-numbered ticket and 20 balls whose function
is the same as in a standard lottery. The player marks from 1 to 15 spots on the
ticket and is paid according to the numbers that roll out on the balls and the
bet he or she chose. The five different ways to bet on a Keno ticket are discussed
below. After each game you may choose to stay with the same spots you played (by
clicking on REPEAT button) or pick new spots on the ticket. Different betting
options are enabled as you place your marks, however you may not mark more than
15 spots on any one game.
 
“Bet”
Option is enabled once you mark at least one spot on the Keno ticket. You are
paid if one or more of the numbers you chose roll out on the balls. The following
is a sample payoff tables for a $1.00 bet.
Mark 1
Catch 1
Payoff
($) 2.75
Mark 2
Catch 1
2
Payoff
($) 1.00
5.00
Mark 3
Catch 2
3
Payoff
($) 2.50
25.00
Mark 4
Catch 2
3 4
Payoff
($) 1.00
5.00 80.00
Mark 5
Catch 3
4 5
Payoff
($) 2.00
10.00 600.00
Mark
6
Catch 3
4 5 6
Payoff
($) 1.00
8.00 50.00 1,499.00
Mark 7
Catch 4
5 6 7
Payoff
($) 5.00
15.00 250.00 5,000.00
Mark 8
Catch 4
5 6 7 8
Payoff
($) 4.00
8.00 40.00 400.00 10,000.00
Mark
9
Catch 4
5 6 7 8 9
Payoff
($) 2.00
5.00 20.00 80.00 2,500.00 15,000.00
Mark 10
Catch 5
6 7 8 9 10
Payoff
($) 2.00
30.00 100.00 500.00 3,000.00 17,500.00
Mark 11
Catch 5
6 7 8 9 10 11
Payoff
($) 2.00
15.00 50.00 80.00 800.00 8,000.00 27,500.00
Mark 12
Catch 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Payoff
($) 1.00
5.00 30.00 90.00 500.00 2,500.00 15,000.00 30,000.00
Mark 13
Catch 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Payoff
($) 1.00
2.00 10.00 50.00 500.00 1,000.00 10,000.00 15,000.00 30,000.00
Mark 14
Catch 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Payoff
($) 2.00
8.00 32.00 300.00 800.00 2,500.00 12,000.00 18,000.00 30,000.00
Mark 15
Catch 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Payoff
($) 1.00
7.00 21.00 100.00 400.00 2,000.00 8,000.00 12,000.00 25,000.00
30,000.00
“Bet Against”
This option is enabled once you have marked at least 8 spots on the tickets. You
are betting that none of the numbers you select show up on the balls. You are
paid only if none of the numbers come up. The following is a sample payoff table
for a $1.00 bet.
Spots
marked Payoff
($)
8 6.00
9 10.00
10 14.00
11 20.00
12 27.00
13 39.00
14 56.00
15 80.00
“Catch All”
This option can be played with 2 to 7 spots marked on the ticket. You are betting
that you will catch all the numbers that you selected. You will be paid only if
all the numbers you chose show up. The following is a sample payoff for a $1.00
bet.
Spots marked
Payoff ($)
2 12.00
3 48.00
4 240.00
5 1,150.00
6 5,600.00
7 28,000.00
 
“High Roller”
Option is enabled once you mark at least one spot on the Keno ticket. This option
is played almost like the “Straight Bet” but the payoff is on a different schedule
where you have to catch more spots in order to get paid, but the payoff is greater.
 
Mark 1
Catch 1
Payoff
($) 2.80
Mark 2
Catch 2
Payoff
($) 11.20
Mark 3
Catch 2
3
Payoff
($) .80
40.00
Mark 4
Catch 3
4
Payoff
($) 4.00
160.00
Mark 5
Catch 3
4 5
Payoff
($) 1.00
10.00 680.00
Mark 6
Catch 4
5 6
Payoff
($) 6.40
72.00 2,000.00
Mark 7
Catch 4
5 6 7
Payoff
($) 1.60
24.00 280.00 6,000.00
Mark 8
Catch 4
5 6 7 8
Payoff
($) 1.00
12.00 80.00 720.00 12,000.00
Mark 9
Catch 5
6 7 8 9
Payoff
($) 7.20
32.00 240.00 3,200.00 16,000.00
Mark 10
Catch 5
6 7 8 9 10
Payoff
($) .80
32.00 104.00 600.00 3,200.00 20,000.00
Mark 11
Catch 6
7 8 9 10 11
Payoff
($) 17.60
60.00 100.00 1,000.00 12,000.00 24,000.00
Mark 12
Catch 6
7 8 9 10 11 12
Payoff
($) 6.40
32.00 120.00 800.00 4,000.00 16,000.00 28,000.00
Mark 13
Catch 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Payoff
($) 1.60
16.00 80.00 600.00 2,000.00 12,000.00 20,000.00 28,000.00
Mark 14
Catch 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Payoff
($) 9.60
40.00 400.00 960.00 3,200.00 12,000.00 20,000.00 28,000.00
Mark 15
Catch 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Payoff
($) 7.20
28.00 120.00 440.00 2,400.00 20,000.00 24,000.00 28,000.00 32,000.00
“Top or Bottom”
This is the only option that is enabled as soon as you start the game before you
mark the ticket. You only need to place your bet to be able to use this option.
You are betting that top or bottom part of the ticket will have fewer spots than
the opposite part. The payoff depends on how great that difference is. The following
is a sample payoff for a $1.00 bet.
Catch on Top
or Bottom Payoff ($)
7 1.00
6 4.00
5 10.00
4 40.00
3 200.00
2 600.00
1 4,000.00
0 10,000.00
 
Keno Strategy
Playing Keno and Video Keno is like picking your lottery numbers. There isn’t
really a possible strategy. It is all down to luck.
The more numbers
you pick, the bigger the prize you will be going for, but picking more numbers
also makes it harder to win.