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Keno/kiːnoʊ/ is a lottery-like gambling game often played at modern casinos, and also offered as a game by some state lotteries.
Players wager by choosing numbers ranging from 1 through (usually) 80. After all players make their wagers, 20 numbers (some variants draw fewer numbers) are drawn at random, either with a ball machine similar to ones used for lotteries and bingo, or with a random number generator.
Each casino sets its own series of payouts, called 'paytables'. The player is paid based on how many numbers were chosen (either player selection, or the terminal picking the numbers), the number of matches out of those chosen, and the wager.
There are a wide variety of keno paytables depending on the casino, usually with a larger 'house edge' than other games offered by that casino. The house edge ranges from less than 4 percent[1] to over 35 percent.[2] The typical house edge for non-slot casino games is under 5 percent.[3]
History[edit]
The word keno has French or Latin roots (Fr. quine 'five winning numbers', L. quini 'five each'), but by all accounts the game originated in China. Legend has it that the invention of the game saved an ancient city in time of war, and its widespread popularity helped raise funds to build the Great Wall of China. In modern China, the idea of using lotteries to fund a public institution was not accepted before the late 19th century.[4]
Chinese lotteries are not documented before 1847 when the Portuguese government of Macau decided to grant a license to lottery operators. According to some, results of keno games in great cities were sent to outlying villages and hamlets by carrier pigeons, resulting in its Chinese name 白鸽票 báigē piào, literally 'white dove ticket', pronounced baak-gap-piu in Cantonese (on which the Western spelling 'pak-ah-pu' / 'pakapoo' was based).
The Chinese played the game using sheets printed with Chinese characters, often the first 80 characters of the Thousand Character Classic, from which the winning characters were selected.[5][6] Eventually, Chinese immigrants introduced keno to the US in the 19th century,[7] where the name was Westernized into boc hop bu[6] and puck-apu.[5] By 1866, it had already become a widely popular gambling game in Houston, Texas, under the name keno.[8]
Probabilities[edit]
Keno payouts are based on how many numbers the player chooses and how many of those numbers are 'hit', multiplied by the proportion of the player's original wager to the 'base rate' of the paytable. Typically, the more numbers a player chooses and the more numbers hit, the greater the payout, although some paytables pay for hitting a lesser number of spots. For example, it is not uncommon to see casinos paying $500 or even $1,000 for a 'catch' of 0 out of 20 on a 20 spot ticket with a $5.00 wager. Payouts vary widely by casino. Most casinos allow paytable wagers of 1 through 20 numbers, but some limit the choice to only 1 through 10, 12, and 15 numbers, or 'spots' as the numbers selected are known.[9]
The probability of a player hitting all 20 numbers on a 20 spot ticket is 1 in 3,535,316,142,212,174,320.[10]
Even though it is virtually impossible to hit all 20 numbers on a 20 spot ticket, the same player would typically also get paid for hitting 'catches' 0, 1, 2, 3, and 7 through 19 out of 20, often with the 17 through 19 catches paying the same amount as the solid 20 hit. Some of the other paying 'catches' on a 20 spot ticket or any other ticket with high 'solid catch' odds are in reality very possible to hit:
| Hits | Probability |
|---|---|
| 0 | 1 in 843.380 |
| 1 | 1 in 86.446 |
| 2 | 1 in 20.115 |
| 3 | 1 in 8.009 |
| 4 | 1 in 4.877 |
| 5 | 1 in 4.287 |
| 6 | 1 in 5.258 |
| 7 | 1 in 8.826 |
| 8 | 1 in 20.055 |
| 9 | 1 in 61.420 |
| 10 | 1 in 253.801 |
| 11 | 1 in 1,423.822 |
| 12 | 1 in 10,968.701 |
| 13 | 1 in 118,084.920 |
| 14 | 1 in 1,821,881.628 |
| 15 | 1 in 41,751,453.986 |
| 16 | 1 in 1,496,372,110.872 |
| 17 | 1 in 90,624,035,964.712 |
| 18 | 1 in 10,512,388,171,906.553 |
| 19 | 1 in 2,946,096,785,176,811.500 |
| 20 | 1 in 3,535,316,142,212,174,320.000 |
Probabilities change significantly based on the number of spots that are picked on each ticket.
References[edit]
- ^Online Keno odds
- ^Shackleford, Michael. 'Keno - Strategy and Odds by The Wizard of Odds'. Wizard of Odds Consulting, Inc. Retrieved 21 July 2010.
- ^Casino advantages for various games
- ^'Keno History'. kenoonline.org. Retrieved 9 June 2015.
- ^ abMelanie Yap, Dianne Leong Man. Colour, confusion and concessions, pp.240-241.
- ^ ab'Chinese Gambling Games; Mysteries of Fan Tan And Boc Hop Bu. Two Popular Games in the Chinese Quarters of American Cities-- Superstitions of the Players. Boc Hop Bu. Superstitions'(PDF). The New York Times. 5 February 1888.
- ^History of Keno. Transl. from German, 2017.
- ^'The New York Times'. 29 July 1866.Cite journal requires
journal=(help) - ^'Tutorial - How to play Keno'. Gambling Info. Retrieved 27 June 2011.
- ^Mark Bollman (2014). Basic Gambling Mathematics: The Numbers Behind the Neon. CRC Press. pp. 40–41. ISBN9781482208931.
Keno's roots are in China, and the game was brought to the United States by Chinese immigrants in the late 1800s. It was originally played with 80 Chinese characters, which in the United States were replaced by 80 Arabic numerals.
For a time in Nevada, each number was accompanied by the name of a racehorse, and the game was known as racehorse keno. The horses' names disappeared in 1951, when a tax on off-track betting on horses was passed. Operators didn't want their game mistaken as betting on the horses. Still, remnants of racehorse keno games remain. Many casinos still call each game a 'race' -- if you bet on more than one game at once, you buy a multirace ticket.
Almost all Nevada casinos have keno lounges, where numbered balls are forced out through an air blower to determine the winners. Some tribal casinos in the upper Midwest also have live keno lounges, and Atlantic City began offering live keno in 1994. On riverboat casinos, keno enthusiasts play video versions, which have grown in flexibility and even offer bonus rounds in the video slot age.
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How to Play
In the live version, the player may mark anywhere from 1 through 20 numbers on a card that has 80 numbers arranged in eight rows of ten. The player then takes the card to a keno writer and places a bet that the numbers selected will be among the 20 drawn in the next game. Alternatively, the player sitting in one of the casino restaurants can mark a card and give it with a bet to a keno runner, who takes it to the keno writer and then brings back the ticket. The bet is in multiples of the house minimum -- usually $1 nowadays.
After the 20 numbers are drawn, winning tickets are paid according to a table that varies from house to house. For example, a four-spot ticket with $1 wagered might return the $1 if two numbers hit, bring $5 if three numbers hit, and pay $120 if all four come in. But in another casino, the three-number hit might pay $6 and all four $125, and in another the payoffs might be $5 and $110. Because of the variation, no payback percentage is common enough to be called average. Paybacks range from below 70 percent to more than 80 percent.
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Bets
Straight ticket: Betting the numbers marked as a single wager is called betting a straight ticket. It's the simplest way to play, but many players like to bet more combinations. One popular method is the 'way ticket.' For example, a player might mark six numbers, circle two groups of three, and mark on the side of the ticket, '2/3, 1/6.' The player then would bet $3 to have $1 wagers on each of two three-spot combinations and on the six-spot.
King ticket: A number circled by itself is the king, which is used in all combinations marked. Let's say a seventh number in the previous example was circled as a king. The player then could mark '2/4, 1/7' to bet two four-number combinations -- the king joining each of the three-number groupings -- and the overall seven numbers.
Combination ticket: The player marks several number groupings and plays combinations of them. For example, a ticket with two-, three-, and four-number groupings can be played as 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5 (the two- and three-number groups together), 1/6 (two- and four-number groups), 1/7 (three- and four-numbers), 1/9 (all three groups). At $1 per game, the ticket would cost $7.
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Progressive Jackpots
For higher-number totals played, or for bigger bets, many keno games offer progressive jackpots. Sometimes the progressive jackpot gets high enough that the house is actually offering more than 100 percent payback. Late in 1994, the jackpot on a $2 eight-spot ticket surpassed $200,000 at a casino in Las Vegas. At the $250,000 jackpot cap, the player would have an edge of 17.4 percent. Now that doesn't mean a player could sit down and win steadily at a 17 percent rate. Results can vary wildly over a short period of time. A player can expect to hit eight-of-eight on the average of once every 230,000 trials, and the casino's eight-spot was paying nothing below five-of-eight spots, so only 2 percent of all tickets would collect anything at all.
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Strategy
Overall, the returns at keno are too infrequent for anyone to play the game seriously. A game or two over breakfast in the casino coffee shop or relaxing in the keno lounge is plenty for many people. But some players on a tight budget enjoy sitting in the keno lounge, being served free drinks and playing a buck at a time as an inexpensive way to spend the day.
For someone who wants to play seriously enough to go from casino to casino, the best strategy is simply to compare pay tables and play at the house that pays the most for the number of spots you select. There is no strategy for selecting numbers -- any number is as likely to come up as any of the others.
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Keno Nc Live
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Video Keno
Video keno is essentially the same game -- he same 80 numbers arranged in the same eight rows on a video screen. Just touch the screen to pick your numbers. Pay tables usually are better than at live keno, but you also play the video game much faster and risk more money per hour than with the live game. Keno machines have followed the growth of video slots, increasing in popularity at the nickel level. Quarter and dollar games also are available.
Regardless of how it's played, keno has emerged as a casino staple since being introduced to the United States more than 100 years ago.
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