If you have ever played keno you would have noticed that not much differentiates this game from a standard lottery. However, there is a lot more to the game and its history that warrants a much deeper understanding.
The origins of the game date back to around 200 years before the New Age when Cheung Leung of the Han Dynasty introduced a type of state lottery as a way to kerb unrest in the region. After decades of war, the masses were fed up with high taxes in order to fund the operations and the Han Dynasty feared an uprising. The lottery not only gave the peasants something to take their minds off their dire positions but also gave the state a way of pulling in far more income. Remnants of this state lottery remain today in the Great Wall of China - funded by the peasants' "generosity" and the ruler's ingenuity.
The game itself consisted of 1000 Chinese characters and white pigeons were used to carry the winning number sequences to outlying villages and towns. The game became so popular at one stage that farmers would down their tools for days and stare at the sky in wait of these white pigeons.
Ironically, this game remained dormant within the borders of China for almost 2,000 years until trade between the USA and China started in the 1800s. This is quite surprising, as millions of Chinese citizens were hooked on this game and it did not even spread to the neighbouring countries.
Nobody is completely sure how the game came to the USA, but historians agree to a point that migrant workers and crewmen on the trading ships taught some of the locals how to play. Due to the fact that any form of gambling was banned in the USA at the time, the game grew in popularity among the risk-takers and some of the more unsavoury characters. This was the outlet that the game of keno needed.
In 1931, gambling was legalized in Nevada. Millions of people flocked to the city to finally have a chance to gamble - however, keno was not one of these games as lotteries were not considered legal at the time and keno was known as "Chinese Lottery". Due to the fact that horseracing was legal at the time, the casino operators took this very popular game and introduced a horseracing theme. Even though the game has nothing to do with races, a game of keno is still referred to as a race.
As more and more people from around the world visited Las Vegas, the game of keno started to spread. Today, you will find keno in thousands of land based casinos around the world.
The biggest surge in popularity came with the growth of online casinos. Keno has now been made accessible to millions of online gamblers who would have ordinarily never given keno a second look in a land based casino.
