Lotto, bingo, keno – every gambler loves these games, don’t they? Of course they do, but who knew that keno was a strong financial support for the Chinese army about 2000 years ago? In fact the game was created to raise finances and was spread all over China with the help of a bird, called the carrier pigeon.

At that time the game of keno was played with gaming cards having 120 numbers and on each card the player could mark 10 selections.

The game was brought to the United States in the 19th century by some Chinese miners and railroad workers. The only difference between the old keno and one played nowadays is that instead of 120 numbers the gaming cards are showing 80 numbers and you can play this game in almost every bingo hall, land based or online casino.

The payouts are based on how many numbers the player is choosing and how many hits does she/he have multiplied with the player’s original wager.

Payouts of course vary from casino to casino. There are casinos who allow the players to pick 20 numbers but most of the casinos limit these numbers to 10 or 15.

It’s almost impossible to hit the jackpot in keno, which means 20 from 20 selected numbers. Ok…it’s not impossible, actually the chances are 1 in 3,535,316,142,212,180,000.

The random numbers are picked up at so called “keno boots” and the keno runners are walking around, shouting “keno” and offering gaming cards to everyone interested.

The picked numbers are written on a big board or shown on video monitors. As the numbers light up, the player markes the number on his/her card with a colored marker.

If you don’t want to waste your time by going to a land based casino, or you just want to stay home with your family, then turn on your computer and play keno online.

This game is easy to play but it has one of the worst payouts, with the house edge varying from 5 to 30%...but still whorts the time, because you never now, you could be the chosen one.