With its origin in China several centuries ago, keno is one of the few "risky" gambling games that has somehow survived the tests of time. Keno found its way to the U.S. in the middle of the nineteenth century, thereafter finding a home in the casinos of Las Vegas, where keno has a large following to this day. Much like the lottery, keno is a game that involves picking numbers. It has a high degree of chance, or more aptly put, an inherently high House Edge. Averaging around 30%, this is the highest edge in the casino. Yet, the draw for keno remains popular, primarily due to the large payouts the game can award. And still there are many players who opt to play the game for its long-term advantage of making small bets - sometimes as low as ten cents.
The rules of keno are straightforward, although online casino is even more so. For all purposes here, I will cite when a rule or situation applies to either or both brick 'n mortar keno gambling and online keno. As I said, the structure of the game is much like lottery. Players pick from two to ten (usually up to fifteen) numbers on a board of eighty numbers (1 through 80). Each selection is called a spot, meaning if the player chooses five numbers, they have five spots. The amount of the wager itself does not change with more or less picks - just the odds do. The wager covers the entire ticket no matter the amount of selections. After all selections have been made, a bin of eighty numbered balls are randomly circulated, from which twenty of the balls are drawn. Depending on how many spots the player has chosen in conjunction with how many of the twenty drawn balls are matching winners, the player will be paid according to a predetermined payout table. All casinos payout tables and wager restrictions are relatively the same in regards to online casinos. Land based casinos vary somewhat more, due to promotions and general House Rules. Generally, in a Las Vegas casino keno lounges will pay up to $50,000 and will allow wagers as low as five cents. In the online casino, however, players can expect to be allowed wagers in stakes of $0.25, 0.50. 1.00, 5.00, 10.00, 20.00, 50.00 or 100.00 per ticket, and receive payouts up to $10,000 (large casinos payout more). If you desire to play keno online, be sure to inquire each casino about their keno rules, for they will differ.
One thing remains the same - In an online casino, a player will be confronted with a board of 80 boxed numbers. On the screen will be a betting stake selector which only needs to be clicked in order to increase or decrease the wager stake. Once the stake has been chosen, the player will begin to select numbers on the board by simply clicking the mouse directly over the number. When the minimum amount of numbers has been selected (usually two) the payout odds will be displayed in an adjacent screen. And just as the stake amount affects the payout scale, as the amount of number selections change, so too will the payout scale. For instance, if a player chooses to pick five numbers, on the payout scale they will see the payouts begin to register for each selection as they are being made. The first selection (meaning one match) may say it will pay half of the original wager, while the fifth selection (meaning five matches) will say that it will pay 25 times the wager. What it is essentially saying is that if one of the five numbers is drawn, the player will lose half of their wager, whereas since the odds are more unlikely for all five numbers to come up, that will pay 25 times the wager. The more selections a player makes, the more stretched will be the payout scale. In other words, the payout for a selection of five will pay more on three winning numbers than on a selection of ten with three winning numbers (Please see the below tables for more clarification). Now, once all selections have been made, the player will click on a "Play" button to commence the drawing of the balls. After twenty balls have been drawn, winnings or losses will be displayed, and the player will have the option of either playing again with the same selections, or, clearing the board and making new selections.
The following is a payout table from a typical keno game (This covers the bare minimum, for keno players will find many casinos that payout for fewer matching bets and that allow larger bet sizes - sometimes up to $100) Also, note that $1 minimums are usually found at online keno games.
| $0.25 Stake per game | $0.50 Stake per game | $1.00 Stake per game | ||||||
| Selections | Matching Bets | $ Payout | Selections | Matching Bets | $ Payout | Selections | Matching Bets | $ Payout |
| 2 | 2 | .25 | 2 | 2 | .50 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 | 1.25 | 2 | 2 | 2.50 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| 3 | 2 | .75 | 3 | 2 | 1.50 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| 3 | 3 | 6.25 | 3 | 3 | 12.50 | 3 | 3 | 25 |
| 4 | 2 | .25 | 4 | 2 | .50 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| 4 | 3 | 1.25 | 4 | 3 | 2.50 | 4 | 3 | 5 |
| 4 | 4 | 20 | 4 | 4 | 40 | 4 | 4 | 80 |
| 5 | 3 | .50 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| 5 | 4 | 2.50 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 10 |
| 5 | 5 | 150 | 5 | 5 | 300 | 5 | 5 | 600 |
| 6 | 3 | .25 | 6 | 3 | .50 | 6 | 3 | 1 |
| 6 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 8 |
| 6 | 5 | 12.50 | 6 | 5 | 25 | 6 | 5 | 50 |
| 6 | 6 | 375 | 6 | 6 | 750 | 6 | 6 | 1,500 |
| 7 | 4 | 1.25 | 7 | 4 | 2.50 | 7 | 4 | 5 |
| 7 | 5 | 3.75 | 7 | 5 | 7.50 | 7 | 5 | 15 |
| 7 | 6 | 62.50 | 7 | 6 | 125 | 7 | 6 | 250 |
| 7 | 7 | 1,250 | 7 | 7 | 2,500 | 7 | 7 | 5,000 |
| 8 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 8 | 4 | 4 |
| 8 | 5 | 2 | 8 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 5 | 8 |
| 8 | 6 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 20 | 8 | 6 | 40 |
| 8 | 7 | 100 | 8 | 7 | 200 | 8 | 7 | 400 |
| 8 | 8 | 2,500 | 8 | 8 | 5,000 | 8 | 8 | 10,000 |
| 9 | 4 | .50 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 9 | 4 | 2 |
| 9 | 5 | 1.25 | 9 | 5 | 2.50 | 9 | 5 | 5 |
| 9 | 6 | 5 | 9 | 6 | 10 | 9 | 6 | 20 |
| 9 | 7 | 20 | 9 | 7 | 40 | 9 | 7 | 80 |
| 9 | 8 | 750 | 9 | 8 | 1,500 | 9 | 8 | 3,000 |
| 9 | 9 | 3,000 | 9 | 9 | 5,000 | 9 | 9 | 10,000 |
| 10 | 5 | .50 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 10 | 5 | 2 |
| 10 | 6 | 7.50 | 10 | 6 | 15 | 10 | 6 | 30 |
| 10 | 7 | 25 | 10 | 7 | 50 | 10 | 7 | 100 |
| 10 | 8 | 125 | 10 | 8 | 250 | 10 | 8 | 500 |
| 10 | 9 | 750 | 10 | 9 | 1,500 | 10 | 9 | 3,000 |
| 10 | 10 | 4,000 | 10 | 10 | 5,000 | 10 | 10 | 10,000 |
Although online keno is commonly done on a standard, or straight keno ticket, if you will, keno at land-based casinos can be played in multiple manners. There are essentially six different tickets a player can choose from. They are straight tickets (like the online version), split tickets, combination, king, way and special tickets. Straight tickets are played as described above. Players are allowed up to fifteen picks per ticket, which can be staked usually from $1 through $100 in major online casinos. Split tickets are simply more than one straight ticket on a single keno card, which is filled by circling or separating two sets of numbers representing different tickets on one paper. Each number can only be used once, (not shared between multiple tickets) which makes this type of play undesirable to some players. Combination tickets are similar to split tickets in that they permit groups of straight wagers to be combined in variant proportions - with each combination individually staked (which should be marked on the right-hand side of the card). The king ticket is a variation on the split, way and combination tickets except that one number is picked in combination with multiple number groupings. It is marked like the split ticket in that each combination and stake amount is listed on the right-hand side of the ticket. Way tickets are simply a way to consolidate multiple tickets onto a single one. They are for convenience sake and have the potential of becoming quite confusing if the player is not familiar with their format. Way tickets allow for wagers smaller than $1 and thus produce fractional rates. like other consolidated tickets, they are marked on the right-hand side of the numbers margin. Special tickets vary from casino to casino for the reason of being promotional offers that casinos run to entice players. They commonly have higher payout schedules, which will likely be printed on an accompanying ticket.
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