Keno: Chinese Lotto Through the Ages

The earliest accounts of this game reports of the earliest game that resembled keno as created by a Chinese ruler by the name of Cheung Leung. During the Han Dynasty at around 200 B.C. Cheung Leung was leading an army against a group of invaders who wanted to take over the city.

Cheung Leung's army was getting tired, and funds and supplies were getting low. The people were also getting tired of the war, and they were now objecting to paying heavier taxes that will be used in the war.

Therefore, Cheung Leung had to formulate a way to look for more funds without levying more taxes on the people.

He took his inspiration from the ancient Chinese poem called the Thousand Character Classic, which was popularly used to help Chinese children learn math and numbers. Taking one hundred and twenty characters from the poem, he divided the characters into subdivisions of eight and had players guess the contents of one subdivision. Those who correctly figured the contents of a subdivision won a prize,usually ten taels, the currency in China at that time.

The game became a popular pastime for the people, and Cheung Leung was able to use the proceeds from the game to continue his war. The Great Wall of China is also reported to have been built from the proceeds of this game. People called the game the game of the white pigeon, since white doves where flown carrying messages of winning combinations and winning names all throughout the Chinese countryside.

The game was brought to America by Chinese immigrants, most of whom congregated in San Francisco. Keno was a popular hit in San Francisco, where a lot Chinese played the game underground, and called it the Chinese lottery.

At the start of the 20th century the traditional Chinese characters used in the game were replaced by numbers to allow American players to join in, since most were having difficulty interpreting the Chinese characters.

The game changed names when the Nevada state legislature decided to legalize most forms of gambling, which keno was. To get around this nuisance, keno operators changed the name to horse race keno, where each number was deemed a horse that one betted on. Today, some operators still refer to the games as races. When off-track betting was finally legalized in the 1930s, the name was changed back to keno, and it has not been changed again since.