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How the Game of Keno Began & Evolved
For what is a relatively easy game to play, the history of Keno is surprisingly complex, and has actually been through a number of transformations. The facts and conjectures of its origins, however, remain intriguing.
Because the game is so similar to lottery, the assumption often made is that it was derived from sort of lottery game in Europe. But that is not the case at all. From the facts that have been established, the history of Keno began in ancient China. There is evidence that around 187 BC a lottery like game became very popular.
According to the story, a hundred or so characters were drawn, and one just had to pick a ten or dozen or so of these. The winning numbers were then drawn, and the information was passed from town to town using pigeons. The game was termed White Pigeon, and clearly played a part in shaping the history of Keno.
How the game came into the United States is somewhat of a mystery, but there are two schools of thought; one is that from China, Keno was transported to Europe and from there it made its way to America. Another theory on the origin of the history of Keno in the US is that the Chinese immigrants who made their way to the New World brought the game with them.
In any event, the game spread quickly in the 1800s; not only was it popular among the Chinese population living on the west coast, but the Chinese Lottery, as Keno was known then, started to attract the English and the Americans as well. During the 1930s, gambling became permissible in Las Vegas, but a flaw in the legislature meant lottery games were illegal. So what happened was that the proponents of Chinese Lottery simply altered the name to Horse Race Keno.
By the time anti gambling laws were repelled, the name of the game was reverted back to the original one. The history of Keno was also changed with the rapid advances in technology; the invention of the random number generator made it possible to produce the winning combinations quickly and at the same time eliminating the possibility of fraud.
As with other casino games, Keno was able to make the transition from land based to online easily. The additional functions that online play provided, not the least of which was being able to play anywhere at any time, has made the game more widespread than ever before.