The history of keno goes back thousands of years. The game of keno originated in ancient China, arrived in America with the Chinese immigrants in the 19th century, and eventually migrated to the casinos and online casinos around the world.

The game of Keno originated in China and is said to have been devised by a man named Cheung Leung. The story tells how during a war, the city that Cheung lived in refused to give any more financial help to the army as they feared their own ruin. Leung devised the game of Keno as a way of raising money to help the army and the city he lived in. He raised enough money with this Keno game to help the army defeat the enemy.

Leung devised the game of Keno based on an ancient poem called "The Thousand Character Classic". The poem consisted of one thousand different characters that were in rhyme and were used at the time to teach children language. Leung used 120 characters from the original poem and laid them out on a board much like a modern lotto board. Players placed bets as to where the counters would land, when thrown. Players were allowed to place up to 10 bets and used a quill ink pen to mark their bets. The term "Keno Spots" still refers to these marks created by the ink on the board. The characters in this poem had unusual names like "Cloud", "Dew" and "Stupid Loser," although it is doubtful as to how many players every chose Stupid Loser as one of their characters. It definitely added more interest to the Keno game. Some legends state that the split of the Keno card with all of the characters was a representation of the Yin and Yang from Asian culture, the good and bad.

After Leung's success at saving his village, Keno spread throughout China to other villages and cities. Legend states that proceeds from Keno were used to help finance the Great Wall of China. In China the game was given the nickname of the "Great White Pigeon Game" as white pigeons were used to send the results to other cities. The game was so popular that men would wait up until the white pigeon arrived with the keno results.

In time, the Keno game was reduced to 90 characters from the 120 of Leung's original version. By the time Keno reached the United States in the late 1850's, it had been further reduced to 80 characters.

The game of Keno traveled to America with the wave of Chinese immigrants who came to work on the railroads. It thrived amongst these Chinese immigrants despite the fact that gambling was illegal. The main concentration of the Chinese immigrants was around the San Francisco area and that is where the keno game flourished. The immigrants would relax after a hard day's work to a game of Keno. Americans referred to it as the Chinese lottery and it caused great interest. Non-Chinese-speaking individuals found it very difficult to play Keno, as the characters were too confusing for them. As a consideration for their fellow Americans, the keno card was changed to Arabic numerals, making it an easier game for English speakers to understand and play. This was the real start of Keno in the United States.

Although gambling was legalized in the United States in 1931, lotteries remained illegal. Not to be put off, keen Keno players changed the name of the game to be "Race Horse Keno" giving the impression that it was a game of betting on horses. Each number a player placed a bet on was supposedly a bet on a horse. This enabled Keno players to carry on playing despite the fact that lotteries were illegal. To this day rounds of Keno are still known as races. But, the government did not rest and decided to tax of- track betting thus making Race Horse Keno a taxable game. After lotteries were legalized, Keno reverted to its original name.

Keno was introduced to the casinos in the early twentieth century. Originally 80 numbers were written on pieces of paper and rolled up into tubes. At the start of the game, 20 numbers were drawn from the tubes and these were the winning keno numbers. In time the papers in tubes were replaced with wooden balls with numbers carved onto them. These wooden balls were known as peas.

Later a Nevada casino owner by the name of Warren Nelson came up with a system of drawing numbered balls from a rotating cage. Nelson opened his own casino in Nevada in 1936, where the first legal casino Keno game was played. Casino Keno is still played today by drawing numbered balls from a rotating cage as a result of Nelson's research. In 1963 the cumulative payout of a Keno game was limited to $25,000; by 1979 it had increased to $50,000. Nowadays, each Keno casino chooses its own limits.

As with any good game, technology also played its part in the widespread development of the keno game. Computers have helped to make the game of Keno more efficient and quicker to play. There are many casinos now that operate computer-controlled Keno cages. Naturally, Keno has also spread to the internet. With the boom of the internet in the 1990s also came the onslaught of the online casino. Online casinos gained in popularity as it became easier to play at them.

Keno was introduced to online casinos at much the same time as the casinos themselves developed. Because of its mystique and history, Keno has become one of the most popular of the online casino games. Online Keno is played in much the same way as the original game of keno. There is a board of 80 numbers and the player can choose up to 15 of these numbers. The online keno computer then selects the 20 winning keno numbers. How much the player will win depends on how many of his chosen numbers match the winning keno numbers.

The payout odds are clearly displayed at the beginning of each game. The betting minimums are also much lower in online keno than at land-based keno casinos, making the game more accessible to the average player. Today, millions of people play Keno online.

It is quite incredible to think that anyone who plays Keno is in fact playing a game that is over 3000 years old. It just goes to show that the Chinese knew what they were doing and built things to last. The characters of the old Chinese poem may not be understood today but the Great Wall of China, which was built from Keno revenues, is still here as a testament to the glory of the game of Keno.