KENO
If you think you
might get rich playing keno, you're right ... and you're wrong. To
understand how you can be at both ends of the correctness spectrum,
you¹ll get some help if you know the origins of the game.
Keno's ancestry traces
back more than 2,000 years to China, when the Chou Dynasty was beginning
to crumble. An inventive individual named Cheung Leung came up with a
lottery game designed to raise money for a provincial army. Leung's
concept was so successful that he was able to mobilize the army
successfully and to unify China under the new Han Dynasty (talk about a
big-money house game!) In the years that followed, all sorts of similar
lotteries appeared in China -- some legal and some not.
Played throughout the
centuries in every province, a variation of Leung's game eventually
found its way to the Chinese communities in America in the 1800s. There
it became known, appropriately, as the Chinese lottery.
In 1931, the game was
introduced into the legal casinos of Nevada under the name racehorse
keno. Gamers thinly disguised it as a bingo-type game since bingo was
legal and lotteries were not. Over the years, undergoing several
changes, it became known as keno.
Now, just knowing that
the game uses a lottery as its basis should be a big clue as to why you
probably won't get rich playing it. After all, Cheung Leung managed
scrape off an edge big enough to support the largest country in the
world. However, knowing that the game uses a lottery as its basis should
also be a big clue as to why you could get rich playing it. Haven't we
all read about those instant multimillionaires, thanks to Powerball?
(Fortunately, today's keno game uses fewer numbers than the original
version, so the house edge isn't as large as it was in Leung's day.)
THE GAME
Keno as we know
it today consists of a paper ticket imprinted with the numbers 1 through
80.
You, the player, select
favourite or lucky numbers, mark these numbers with an X using a crayon
provided by the casino, determine how much money you want to invest in
the game, then submit the ticket to a keno writer or runner. How much
you can win is determined by the number of "hits" (matching
numbers) you get -- and how much money you invested. Obviously, the more
numbers that come in and the more money you've wagered have a lot to do
with the payoff ... and the more numbers you pick, the harder it is to
win.
FOR EXAMPLE
If you hit
six out of six in this casino, we'll win $1,600. If we hit five of the
six numbers, we'll get back $80. Four out of six will yield us $4 while
three out of six will get us our $1 back.
In days gone by, you
could play just one game at a time. Today, you can play two, three, even
100 games, just by indicating that preference on your ticket and putting
up the appropriate amount of cash. At some casinos, you can play 1,000
games and have up to a year to present your ticket for validation and,
if necessary, collection of winnings.
You can play a one-spot,
a two-spot, all the way up (in some casinos) to a 15-spot ticket, and
your results, should you hit, vary according to the casino.
KENO
WINNING SYSTEMS
In general the
easier a game is to understand the greater the house advantage, and keno
is a perfect example of this. Played in a lounge or at your restaurant
table, keno involves the player choosing from 1 to 15 (sometimes 20)
numbers from 1 to 80. Every five minutes or so the casino will choose 20
numbers ranging from 1 to 80. If enough of your chosen numbers match
those drawn by the casino then you will win, depending on exactly how
many match and the payoff table at your particular casino.
While the payoff tables
will vary from one casino to another the expected return seems to always
range from 70 to 80 cents per dollar bet, making keno among the worst bets
in the casino. Many states outside Nevada offer keno as an alternative to
lottery tickets. While I can't speak for every state Maryland keno has an
expected return of about 50 cents per dollar bet. I believe other state
run keno to be just as bad. |
