keno wagering

The Legend of Keno

We just have two questions for you: do you like playing keno? Do you like hearing about ancient stories or legends? If a resounding yes is your answer to both questions then it's a good thing you chanced upon this article. We're here to tell you about the wonderful legend of the game of keno. We'll begin it in the usual way, okay? So here goes!

Once upon a time in a land far far away there was this nameless individual who found an ancient scroll. Inside that dusty, near to breaking scroll, he found something that may not equal the impact of Nostradamus' predictions but was interesting all the same. It was, in fact, so interesting that he had to share it to the whole world: it was the legend of the game of keno.

The ancient scroll dates the story as far back as 200 BC. If you've flunked World History, that part of Chinese History had the Han Dynasty in the starring role. The story tells us about one of the Han generals living during that time, his problem about the war he was involved in and how he managed to solve it.

General Cheung Leung was in a quagmire. His city was besieged and he had run out of supplies to fund the needs of his army. General Cheung Leung had even tried exhorting the peasants to no avail; the people simply didn't want to contribute any more of their hard earned money to the needs of the military even if it meant losing the city to the enemy.

General Cheung Leung however was not one to give up. In a stroke of luck - and most probably as a result of stubbornness and determination - he was able to come up with a method so simple and yet so effective that upon hearing it, other generals would have probably knocked their heads against the wall for not coming up with the same idea in the first place.

The general devised a game that we now know as keno. Back then, keno was made up of 120 different Chinese characters instead of simply the numbers 1 to 80. Each subdivision was made up of 8 characters and if a peasant lost one whole subdivision, he would simply have to pay 3 lis. But if he won 1 division, he would be given 10 taels instantly.

The odds seemed so favorable to the peasants that it became an instant success. In just 10 days, the army was able to collect more than 1,000 pieces of silver!

And that was how a simple guessing game was able to save a city's fate once upon a time in history.